How Map Makers Make More Money

Mari and I were driving down the road, a freeway, no less, intending to exit at a certain town. Mari was reading the map.

Let me tell you how it was.

The exit for Orionburg was printed on the map as exit 263.

Well, there was no exit 263.

In fact, the Orionburg exit was about 20 miles back. We had driven right past it.

(Don't say we should have noticed it. We weren't looking for it 20 minutes before we should have been there!)

It's clear what happened.

It's another of those cases where map makers conspire with communities and highway departments to obsolete their maps.

I don't know how much they pay them, but I hope it's plenty. One would think moving a whole community 20 miles toward the south would entail quite a bit of expense. Removing the freeway exit is paid for by taxpayer money, of course.

Or maybe the community did it for the thrill of it and the perk of imagining the faces of all the people they fooled.

We'll probably end up buying another map.

But it gripes. One doesn't feel all jolly inside when one is taken advantage of, and there is nothing one can do about it, all for someone else's profit.