Smile-breaks
If I Get a GPS for My Car...
I'm gonna get me a GPS. Now if I can only think of somewhere to go - somewhere that I don’t already know how to get there. The way to work is grooved into my tires; I know the way to Office Depot, Janet’s Café and the gas station – I stay as far away from there as I can. I’m not a traveling salesman; I don’t make house calls; heck, I’m not even a party girl. So why would I need a GPS?
My sister has one on her new Honda. Wonder if she uses it much… Mostly she goes on cruises – without her Honda, I’m pretty sure. My boss has a GPS – but she goes around wooing donors at social functions all over town and they’re not always easy to find.
For some reason I decided to add a GPS to my rental car reservation in Pennsylvania last month. Never done that before, but I’ve been known to get lost in Pennsylvania and it was only fifty dollars. Besides, it was vacation – why not?
There’s a lady in the GPS. ’Least there was in ours. Maybe yours is a guy. Anyway, she took Brett and me everywhere. We got accustomed to her face, accustomed to her…
Oh, that’s a song, isn’t it? Anyway, we got used to her. She was most pleasant. Never told me I’d taken a wrong turn. She just bonged her bells two times loudly whenever I strayed off the path and said, “Recalculating.”
She said it a lot. So much that Brett and I missed it when we got to Punxsutawney and didn’t need her help any more. A couple of times we said it ourselves. “Recalculating.” “Recalculating.”
Yep, I definitely want a GPS. It would be so soothing to hear her voice on my way to work. “In point five tenths of a mile turn right and bear left.” “Drive ten miles straight; then bear right.”
What if I get a “him?” Can you order a “her?” Are they all “hers?” But then, a “him” might not be bad…
It would be fun to see how she directs me to work. There are two routes – one is shorter and one is easier on the miles per gallon. Would she choose the way I usually go? I guess I’d have to take a few wrong turns, just to hear that musical “ Bong. Bong. Recalculating.”
Like I said, we had lots of wrong turns in Pennsylvania. Her recalculating led us to parts of Pittsburgh that no one but the natives have seen. One time when we missed an off-ramp she led us to a narrow street where you have to maneuver between the parked cars and told us to turn left onto it. It led to nowhere, I swear. But suddenly it turned right and we were going down the steepest hill you ever saw. Phew! We made it. Another right turn and there we were - back at the missed off-ramp.
I think she got a little impatient with me toward the end. We took a lot of side trips and stuff that made her recalculate over and over. Plus I missed a few turns. Yeah, yeah. Only a few. I missed the same onramp twice on the last day. The second time she didn’t say a word for a long time. Finally she relented and told me to drive until it was safe to make a U-turn and make the U-turn. After I made the U-turn she went back into “recalculating” mode and got us back to the ramp.
The fine print on the rental contract said if I didn’t return the GPS I’d have to pay an extra two hundred fifty dollars. I liked her a lot, but two hundred and fifty dollars? In the end, I turned her in with the car.
But I can’t get her out of my mind… the silence is killing me.