One of the greatest days of my life was when I got my GPS. You think I'm exaggerating? I'm not. For my job I have to drive all over a large region, travelling to homes. Some of them on little tiny back roads. Some in the country, in the middle of nowhere. I used to get lost alot. Okay, constantly. I added mileage to the car that was completely unnecessary, getting lost mileage.
I admit that I have a problem. I am severely directionally challenged. Honestly, I have a real deficit. It was getting so bad that I would actually turn the opposite way to what I thought I should turn, just because I am so often wrong. Anyway. That didn't work out very well, either.
I hate to repeat this story (funnily enough, my husband loves it) of how once while navigating in Europe I directed my husband consistently away from Rome as opposed to going toward it. My husband likes to talk about how we found the city of La Civita with a population of 15, but we were unable to find a city with the population of Rome. Needless to say, it was my fault. I ended up driving a rented standard car through the crazy chaos that is Rome traffic, while my husband navigated. Would I do it again? Any. Day.
And then I got my GPS. It doesn't sigh loudly in my ear when I make a wrong turn. It doesn't roll its eyes. It doesn't mutter remarks about my problem. It just calmly says, 'Recalculating'. And then...'Make a U-turn as soon as humanly possible'. It does that to everyone, right?
Anyway, it's so great. It's much less stressful. I still had to get used to it, though. It had a woman's voice and I found her tone a little annoying.
Once I was driving to Toronto to a workshop. I was on the Don Valley Parkway and the power cut out to the GPS and it went black. It wasn't pretty. When I finally made it home the next day (slight exaggeration) I slammed the door and yelled to my husband, "The honeymoon is OVER!"
My husband looked surprised because at that point we'd been married for eleven years and really...he knew that already. But it was a manufacturer's problem so we got it replaced.
And once I was late to a meeting because I took a wrong turn, and the woman said, "But don't you have a GPS?"
I laughed nervously. "Um, yes...ha, ha....it's a long story."
The fact is my deficit is so wide and far-ranging that I had trouble when it would tell me to turn in 500 metres. I wasn't sure exactly how much distance that was. Often I would turn too soon. Anyway, I've figured it all out now. I've even figured out how to change the voice. To an Australian male named Daniel.
Oh, and Daniel....love you!
2 comments:
i've thought about a gps and borrowed one from a friend but i found that i couldn't stop speaking to the voice! it would tell me where to turn and i would say thank you.
You're so polite! It's true I talk to mine as well. I guess it's human nature to respond to a voice...any voice.
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