I don't own a GPS and I don't think I want one. Somehow the thought of a disembodied voice in the car saying "Turn left in 300 yards" or whatever would bug me. Like I know how far 300 yards is! Besides, I have Dennis most of the time. He does a great job of telling me which way to go and when to turn. He feels that it takes both of us to drive the car: me to steer and him to navigate. I don't know where he gets the idea that I can't find my way around.
Well, there were a few times that might have made him think that. Like when we lived in California and my mom and I went to a Swap Meet in Long Beach. When we left to go home to Fountain Valley I was kind of showing off that I could negotiate the busy freeways till, after an hour of driving, I looked up and realized that we were heading toward mountains. Fountain Valley isn't toward the mountains; I was driving in the opposite direction. It must have been my mom's fault because another time when she was in the car with me I was trying to take her to Springfield to meet my sister and somehow I was on the Muskogee turnpike and there are no exits till you get to Muskogee so we had to go all the way there and back before heading to Springfield.
Okay, I guess she wasn't with me when, pre-cell phones, I was trying to do a good deed and deliver some homemade bread I had made as part of a meal our Sunday School class was providing for a new mother. I got to the neighborhood, but it was one of those where they think it's cute to have the streets all curvy and there are five streets all named after birds like Robin Way and Robin Court and Robin Terrace and...You get the picture. I got so frustrated that I started eating the bread and when it was all gone I found a way out of there and went home. The neighbors had probably brought in plenty of food anyway.
The advent of cell phones certainly helped, like when I was in Dayton visiting Josh and Jerilyn when David was about a year old. They wanted to go out while I was there to babysit. We all went out to eat, taking two cars, then they left to go a movie and David and I headed to their house. In the dark. But it was a route I had been driven many times. An hour later, after many turns and, stops at scary convenience stores asking for directions and David saying from the back seat in his little voice "Grandma crying?", I recognized the name of a shopping center that was on the other side of town from their house. I did remember that some of their friends lived near there, though. I called Josh at the movie, got their number and their friend, Cherie, to whom I will be forever grateful, met me in a parking lot and let me follow her all the way to Josh and Jerilyn's. Into the driveway. Like she didn't trust me.
And there was the time I went around the same intersection five times trying to get home from South Oklahoma City. I called Dennis and he made me stay on the phone till I got off and actually onto a highway. I know some states have laws against talking on the phone while you are driving but if they pass one here I'm in big trouble.
I do know my way to Wal-Mart though. Duh. Who wouldn't, as many times a week as I go there. Well, there is that new one they built right down the road from us. I got there okay the other day, but it took me about half an hour to get home for some reason. I'm not going there again unless Dennis goes with me.
No comments:
Post a Comment