Monday, October 8, 2012

Make the Next Legal U-Turn

Ok, so I said months ago...actually, I might have said it at some point in 2011...anyways, I said I was going to post about my GPS.  I've been busy with school and work and dogs and girls and the dentist.  I won't go into that now because I may need material for the next time I post which will probably be sometime in June 2013.  Assuming we're all still here and the world hasn't ended.  Anyways, my GPS.  She doesn't have a name because she's a crazy bitch and I really think she's trying to kill me.  I realize this isn't any different than anyone else's GPS.  I can only assume that GPS's are made by insane bitches in a basement somewhere who just sit around and come up with creative vehicular homicide scenarios.

It isn't just my GPS, either.  It is GPS's in general that hate me.  It doesn't matter who they belong to.  I was staying in downtown Atlanta for Momocon (the nerdiest of the nerd conventions that I go to.  Some people also call it an anime convention but the terms are interchangeable) on Spring St. at the Preferred Boutique hotel.  It was a nice hotel, let me just throw that out there but the only parking option at the Preferred Boutique is valet which is $25/night.  I was not aware of this when I pulled my 1996 Mercury Tracer up to the valet who just just finished parking someone's Porsche.  Don't ask for the specifics about the Porsche.  All I can tell you is that it was silver and cool and whoever drives it probably has a small penis.  I'm fairly certain the valet laughed when I handed him my keys.  He also filled out one of those little cards that has the picture of the car and they circle all the pre-existing dents and scratches on the car before they park it.  The card looked like a two-year-old had tried to write a novel on it.  Anyways, enough about my shitty car (his name is Freddy, by the way) and back to the GPS.  The convention was located on the campus of Georgia Tech.  My friend's GPS took me to the interstate.  The exit she told me to take was closed so I had to drive further up the interstate and turn around and it took us roughly 20 minutes to get from the hotel to Georgia Tech, which I found out much later was actually in walking distance from the hotel.

And yet! I trusted my friend's psycho GPS again that night when we decided to drive to Piedmont and have dinner at Cow Tippers a fabulous (and I do mean fabulous) steak house.  The GPS instructs me to get onto interstate 85 and take the next exit in .2 miles.  Now, I'm not sure if you've ever tried to cross 8 lanes of traffic in Atlanta in .2 miles but I did it.  We all thought we were going to die.  I'm sure the bitch in the GPS box was very disappointed.

My GPS is a little more subtle.  She tries to catch me off guard.  I was trying to find Chick-fil-a in Kennesaw and my GPS told me to turn right and then my destination was on my right.  Sounds simple enough except there wasn't anything on the right except a large field.  There was nowhere to turn into said field because I thought maybe it was on the other side of it, I don't know.

Sometimes she tells me to do things I was supposed to do five miles ago.  This usually happens when I'm in the middle of nowhere and my signal is weak.  In other words, the last place you want your GPS to stop working.  I'm sure the locals are sitting in their rocking chairs with their banjos in their overalls (the locals, not the banjos) watching my car roll by six or seven times before my GPS decides she's bored with the game we're playing and we move on to something else.

She also likes to get me lost.  Most days she brings me home from school up I-75.  But randomly she has me takes back roads as well, and this makes me nervous.  I am starting to suspect that she is secretly conspiring with my car to abandon me in the middle of nowhere in the dead of night.  Up to now Freddy has resisted because I try to be good to him.  One day, however he's going to get pissed and just shut everything down and the then...then the bitch wins.

What I hate about her most is that she's sooooo condescending.  If I miss a turn I can almost see her rolling her eyes.  "It was right there.  How could you miss it, moron? Take the next legal u-turn, I guess.  Dumbass".  The worst part is is that she gives me stupid directions on purpose so that I feel self-conscious when I have to turn around.  I do everything she tells me and suddenly, without warning, I'm "off track".  I have to make the next legal u-turn.

It's funny how I continue to trust her, though.  You would think at this point I would have learned.  One day I'll be in this situation:

GPS:  You are now in a corn field.  Please make the next legal u-turn.

And yet, I will forgive her because sometimes she actually does get me to where I need to be without getting me lost or giving me imaginary locations just to mess with me.

And that entire family of map applications exists to make you feel like an imbecile or just plain confuse you.  Here, let me show you a screen cap of this Google Maps search:

Clearly, as you can see, Google Maps is run by the Amish (ironic, all things considered) who do not believe in modern modes of transportation such as, oh I don't know....planes maybe? Well, why the hell would you fly to Hawaii when you could take a kayak? And of course after you have done that you should "continue straight".  Don't take a right at that bobbing flotsam or you might end up in Japan.

And GPS/maps love boats (haha, I almost typed goats.  They probably love goats, too.  Who doesn't love goats.  They're cute).  My friend was telling me how her brother's GPS had lead him to a river and the GPS instructed him to "board the ferry".  I hope he didn't.  She would most likely tell him to take a u-turn and try to drown him.

Why all the games, GPS? Why not just direct us into oncoming traffic and get it over with? Why pretend to be our friend and then lead us into uncertain disaster? It's hurtful.  Yet, we keep coming back to you because let's face it...without you, we would be completely lost.








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