My son went for his second job interview today with Portrait Innovations.

An hour late, thanks to his mom.

It was an honest mistake but I wish I hadn't interferred now.

He's been living in Kansas City the last two months so his first interview was up there.

When he told me there was an opening in Wichita, I got excited and called the home office to see where they were opening a store. They said Tall Grass. I was real excited because that's the side of town closest to the little town I live in 20 miles away.

So I went bebopping by the store location a couple times to see how the construction was coming. The day before the interview, I took Jon the fastest way to get there so he wouldn't be late. We peaked in the windows long enough to attract one of the workers attention and he brought us out a brochure. Jon told him that he was actually coming for a job interview the next day and the guy acknowledged that someone from the home office would indeed be in town to hold interviews.

Jon left 40 minutes before the interview to make sure he would get there on time. He drives up with a few minutes to spare sees men in the store all with the company logos on their shirts and he assumes that he has a bunch of the people from the home office there to greet him. He goes in and waits to find out that these are only the set up crew and he's in the WRONG location. The interviewer from the home office is at the other location on the other side of town. He calls and gets brief directions. Take Hwy 96 to Hwy 235. No east, west or north/south directions. Jon finds himself coming to a split in the highway and takes the wrong one. At this point, he realizes he's on the 135 instead of the 235.

He calls mom for backup since I'm pretty familiar with Wichita. Based on what he was telling me, I told him to get off at the next exit. He does and then says left or right. I said left and he told me the name of the cross street he was at. I said I know right where that's at -  the next red light should be Broadway if you are going the right direction.

He begins naming off streets and I tell him he's going the wrong direction! He makes a u-turn and heads back in the right direction to come up on a detour. The detour is taking him down sidestreets and I'm trying to track him on a mapquest map to get him through it.

At this point we are both totally tense and he's running a half hour late. When he gets back on the street that he's suppose to be on, I realize that it does a weird thing and I could navigate if I was with him but I'm via telephone! The street literally comes to an end, turns left onto another street name. You are driving down 21st, when it makes a left onto West Street. Bizarre! Would drive a saint to cuss. You have to drive down West Street to 13th Street to Zoo Blvd. which makes a diagonal zig zag back to 21st Street.

Thank goodness I had the map on the screen because I could never have navigated him through that one from memory!

He arrives at the intersection he's suppose to be at an hour late and he sees this huge shopping mall that he's suppose to find the store in. He decides to hang up with me to look for his destination with both hands since he's driving a stick shift in a parking lot.

Mission accomplished, he arrives, shakes hands and has a 10 minute interview which left him bewildered with the usual, "will call you Monday." That leaves him hanging for the better part of a week when he's trying to decide if he can go rent an apartment or does he need to hold off and go look for another job. Empoyers never seem to understand that people's lives are literally "on hold" while they are waiting for the potential employer to call back.

Jon has been "on hold" with this company for about a month now but he was confident enough to give notice to his job in Kansas City and move back home. Needless to say, he will be looking for an apartment in Wichita regardless. When is the question now. How long will he have to sleep on the futon in our workout room which use to be his bedroom 3 years ago??? His stuff is stored in our garage, attic and his car at the moment.

Life, are we having fun yet??