How to get lost on the way to work.

It's a rare thing getting lost on the way to work after nearly six months
of employment.  But it can happen!

On my way in to work yesterday, I got off the tube at a different stop,
Tottenham Court Road, and started walking to work.  From this location it's
at most 8 minutes away.  I've walked from there many times during my lunch
hour and I knew the area very well.  So I got above ground and started
south along Charing Cross Road.  I turned left into the tangle of
streets, knowing that one of them would get me to one of the roads I'm
familiar with.  But I kept veering, and walking and nothing was looking
like a road I had walked on during my daily lunch-time walks.  After 10
minutes I started walking a little faster.  After 30 minutes I was beginning
to wonder if I was in some parallel universe version of London.  Something
from the Twilight Zone.  It was inconceivable to me that I could be walking
around for this long without seeing *something* that I recognized.  This is
the heart of Soho, a place the I thought I knew really well.

I also hadn't been getting much sleep lately due to some extra work that
I've needed to get done in the evenings, so I was a little paranoid.
Solipsism was kicking in, and I was looking around to see if people were
running around changing street signs to confuse me.  I recognized street
names, they should be right, but nothing was familiar.

It got to the point that I started plotting an escape strategy from this
odd virtual London.  I figured that if I keep going left, in a very large
circle, I'd eventually get somewhere I know (even if it's way out of my
way).

Sure enough, I came to Oxford Street, and I recognized things.  But I came
upon it from the opposite side that I thought that I was on.

Eventually I realized that I had left from the wrong exit out of the tube
station and didn't notice that I was going the wrong way down the main
street.  I got to work, nearly 40 minutes late, and I had the embarrassing
excuse that I had gotten lost.  For over a half hour. On my way to work.
In an area I "know".

Morals?  1) get enough sleep. 2) don't blame the fundamental underlying
nature of the universe on your getting lost, because it's rarely the truth.
3) getting lost in London is a good way to find new Thai places!