An ant is seen on the carpet in the room. No, two ants. Three. More.

How they got into the room is not clear. But there they are. They are clearly confused. They go first this way, then that way. They run in straight lines. They run in circles. They reverse course, move left, move right. They don’t know where they are. They are, I am sure, searching for something. Perhaps they are searching for the meaning of life.

I imagine them as scouts, sent to find out about this previously unexplored country. Is it comfortable? Is it safe? Is there food? Should more of their extended family come? They are thinking about the proper response. Like the scouts in the Bible sent to report back on the Promised Land, they decide they will say “The land is fine, flowing with milk and honey, but there are giants who live there. We should stay away.”

What brought this to mind were not really ants on a carpet, but me in White Oak, Maryland. Let me tell you the story:

Yesterday, I had a simple task to accomplish in connection with my duties as President of the Jewish Funeral Practices Committee of Greater Washington. I had to deliver something to Hines Rinaldi Funeral Home, on New Hampshire Avenue in White Oak, 8 or 9 miles from our house.

I drove out Connecticut Avenue four miles to the Beltway and headed east. Traffic was heavier than usual. I take one of two routes. Either I stay on the Beltway, get off at the New Hampshire Avenue and drive north a mile or two to Hines Rinaldi, or I get off a few exits sooner on Colesville Road (Route 29 to Columbia MD and Baltimore) and diagonal my way to New Hampshire Avenue. The Colesville/New Hampshire intersection is just south of Hines Rinaldi, and this route is probably five or ten nanoseconds quicker.

The Beltway traffic got heavier (I blamed it on the July 4 getaway), so I decided to get off at Colesville. For a mile or so, all was fine, but then I stopped. I was on sort of a hill, and I could see that there was a barely moving line of cars stretching into the distance. Slowly, slowly I crept forward. I then discovered the problem. Colesville Road, a very main artery, was closed (there had been an accident which had toppled a utility pole, but I did not know that at the time). There was no explanation given (just a “Road Closed” sign), there were no detour signs directing cars around the trouble. There was nothing.

Where the road was closed off, you had a choice. Go left or go right (or, I guess, go back). On either side of Colesville, there are single family, middle class residential areas, set out on narrow streets that are as curvy as possible. My goal was to get to New Hampshire Avenue – I knew I was very close. But the roads curved, some dead ended, some split. The sky was overcast (actually affected by the Canadian wild fires), so you couldn’t navigate by the sun.

You also couldn’t navigate by your phone – your phone just brought you back to Colesville Road. I couldn’t blame the phone. Nothing else was sensible.

There were many cars, of which I was just one. We were just like the ants. We would go in one direction, then the street would end in a T, and half of us would go one way, and half the others. As you went up a street, people were coming down the same street. Cars were making U-turns. They were pulling to the side, so drivers could try one more time to navigate by GPS. Pun intended, it was amazing. There seemed no way out.

Until there was. Up ahead I saw traffic lights and a major street. Whew, I thought, New Hampshire Avenue at last! But it was not to be. It was not New Hampshire Avenue at all, but University Boulevard. I had gone in the opposite direction, and now needed to go back to the Beltway and once again fight the slow Beltway traffic, this time all the way to New Hampshire. My normally 30 minute trip took almost 90 minutes.

In the cool light of day, I looked at the street map of the area one more time. Even though New Hampshire was probably less than a half mile from where Colesville was closed, there was no way to get there from the residential areas either to the left or the right of Colesville. The reason is a branch of Rock Creek which Colesville crosses before it gets to New Hampshire, but which none of the residential streets crossed. I hadn’t missed a turn that would have led me where I wanted to go. There simply were no such turns.

But clearly, none of us ants knew that.