Skills you don't learn in school

I went to Orange County for work last Tuesday and got lost.  (Who's surprised?)  I was sure my trip would be easy-peasy.  First visit, Troy High School, Fullerton, 9 am.  Google's predicted drive time: 27 minutes.  I left at eight, and still arrived late.  At least that one I could blame on the traffic.  Second visit, Fountain Valley.  The directions looked foolproof, since, as you'll observe below, there were only two right-hand turns standing between me and my destination.

Easy, right?  Well, this is what I actually did:

Somehow, despite those idiot-proof directions, I nearly ended up at the beach.  Sheesh.  When you apply for a job in admission, a standard question is whether you have a valid driver's license -- nobody ever inquires if you can successfully navigate yourself from point A to point B within the normal life expectancy of a mosquitofish (two years, in case you were curious).  So directions are perhaps not my strong point.  But I do have one unexpected skill up my sleeve.

Present me with a choice of three near-identical strip malls, like so:

And I can tell you, with unerring accuracy, which one contains the Starbucks (hint: in California, it's usually next to the Jamba Juice).  Granted, this won't save the world anytime soon, but it sure comes in handy.  Who says suburbanites don't have survival skills?

Images 1 and 2 from Googlemaps; image 3 from http://www.crcconstruction.com/