12/10/2006

I Was the Victim of a Teenaged Robot...Or How I Learned to Hate GPS

We are trying to get into the Christmas Spirit. We are looking at the season through rose colored glasses...



Which helps.


But then we went a little too far. We decided to go Christmas shopping in Myrtle Beach. That was overkill. We wore ourselves out shopping and eating, eating and shopping. We bought one Christmas present and a soft pretzel.

Navigating through Myrtle Beach can be a little confusing. It's easy to get turned around. Somehow on the way into town we veered off onto the wrong 501, thus making the trip a bit longer than we'd estimated.

The Unnamed Ones relished this opportunity to point out our mistakes. They then pulled out a cell phone and hooked up to a new GPS feature that would map our route home. They were so full of themselves! All the way home a disembodied female voice said things like "Prepare to turn left onto route 52 in .6 miles."

It was creepy having another adult female's voice come from the backseat, telling us how to drive and where to turn. The Unnamed Ones worshipped this voice, instantly following its advice when they barely listen to their own mother!

Along the trip home, we did see many sites we might've overlooked had we not ventured along with GPS Woman.




Then this...


and this:




but also this:



But mainly we saw this:


For hour after hour after hour! The 3 hr and 15 minute trip lasted over 5 hours!

A fact we will not let the Younger Unnamed Ones forget anytime soon!

2 comments:

Teena in Toronto said...

What did you buy me??!! Huh!! Huh!!

It's not the destination, it's the journey!

Billy Jones said...

I'm reminded of a trucking company I drove for in the 1980s when Qualcomm GPS enabled satelite tracking and computerized routing first came into existence. Orders came down from the top that all drivers were required to follow the routes given to us by the computers.

It took about 2 weeks, several wrecked trucks, a few trailers with the tops ripped out, dozens upon dozens of late deliveries, and many a driver getting ticketed for being off the legal truck routes before we were ordered to forever ignore the newly installed GPS systems. And back in the 80s GPS systems were as big as 2 small (12") televisions and costs over 6 thousand dollars per truck to install.