If you’ve purchased a portable navigation system for your vehicle, you know a whole new relationship was birthed automatically, without warning or your approval. It’s frustrating, difficult, intrusive and one-sided.
I’m talking about the voice on a GPS. They’re annoying as hell. You can actually pick what voice you’d like to tell you you’re an idiot. But I’ve found it doesn’t matter, they’re all equally annoying.
Some people have taken to naming the voice that tells them when to turn, where the next gas station is or how long you’ve got to drive until reaching your destination. They’re normally cute names like Cindy, Lucy or Pierre.
I call mine something a little too descriptive or obscene for a family newspaper. Suffice to say, we’ve got cracks in our concrete, as therapists like to say.
It’s not really her fault and I know it. Our first encounter was in Paris, the city of lights. How romantic. But she just kept telling me, “Missed turn. Recalculating.” Recalculating, that has so much connotation of a huge error on both of our parts. I missed the turn, she is in the car with the wrong guy. She needs to recalculate.
I had just picked up a rental car and was driving the two quick miles back to pick up the rest of my family. I didn’t know the three lanes that looked so wide and inviting on my GPS’s screen were actually grid-locked in a manner I’d never encountered. It took about four or five cycles to get through one light, progress of about two blocks.
Once I’d trekked through the first light my new friend wanted me to, “turn right at next light, turn right at next light, turn right at next light.’ She wouldn’t shut up. I’m not deaf, I’m just not adept at driving in bumper-to-bumper traffic in a large European city.
What she also would not acknowledge was that I was in the far left lane and many cars blocked any hope of crossing to the right lane in the next 50 feet. I missed the turn and she wasted no time telling me so.
“Missed turn. Recalculating,” that sing-songy voice that reeked of I Told Yous So.
I know. I knew I would miss the turn before I missed it. I wanted her to know she wasn’t right all alone. I was right too.
I got back to the apartment after an hour of navigation torture. Leaving the city was no picnic either. She was totally thrown when I wanted on Highway A13 and we were trapped, exit-less, on the A15, right underneath our desired freeway. She thought we were fine. Just like our relationship.
I knew we were in big trouble when coming back to the apartment in Caen from the Normandy coast late at night. I tried to second guess her. I wanted back on the freeway from a local access road. She wanted me to go up five miles to hit the next interchange. I could see the freeway and an access road so made a turn to head toward it.
“Impossible, make U-turn.”
Impossible. That was what we’d come to. Such finality. We were beyond therapy.
You don’t need a GPS in Española. She stays at home these days. I don’t miss her. I don’t think she misses me. There wasn’t real closure when we all came home. She was just unceremoniously put in the closet. She probably deserved better.
But I’m heading to Florida soon. Tough traffic in Tampa. I wonder if she’ll take me back.