Getting lost

I've been living in this blessed city for nearly 3 years. Long enough, you'd think, to know the way to school. But one early morning I was on autopilot on my way to school, worrying more about the level of petrol Darrell had left in my tank than about the route to school - after all, I could do that in my sleep!
So, clearly sleeping, I took the wrong turn. In my defence, it was on a huge circle that in order to go to school I take one turning, to go home, I take the turning before. Clearly, I thought I had already dropped the kids, and I took the turning for home - which spat me out onto the motorway heading back into the city. This motorway was jammed solid with traffic, so I took an exit which I knew would take me to the Dubai motorway, which had an exit which could take me through to another motorway which would get me to the school area. Only to find that the 2nd exit above mentioned had been closed off. So I was stuck on the road to Dubai. So after 10 km I took another exit to another area I'm familiar with - or I thought I was. Got to the area only to find all the roads had been dug up and were under construction and I ended up back on yet another motorway heading back into Abu Dhabi. By this time I was seriously worried about petrol and David was resigned to the fact that his PE class had already started.
Found a petrol station eventually and managed to find a place to duck under the motorway and back onto it in the opposite direction, finally heading where we wanted to be. Only an hour late for school.
What a price we paid for a few seconds of inattention!