My GPS Lies To Me

Some people are born with some kind of internal mapping system.  These people always know where they are.  They are good with directions.  These are the people you call when you are lost and have no idea where you are.

My grandpa is one of these people.  He is a walking, talking atlas.  He drove a bread truck 35 years ago in a town he has never lived in.  I moved to that town and my first week there I got horribly lost.  I called him. He hadn't been in my town since his last day driving that bread truck. He still remembered the roads from 35 years ago.  He helped me find my way to my new house, a house he'd never even seen.

If my grandfather drives somewhere once, his brain creates this internal map of that place and he can get to it again years later with no problem.  I don't know how he does it.  My daddy could do it too.

I can't.  I have never been good with directions.  When I first got my license I got lost with such frequency that both my grandpa and my uncle began answering the phone with, "What do you see?" instead of "Hello" when I called.  They just knew I had gotten myself lost again.

My daddy used to tell people I could get lost in a round room with one door.  Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure he was right about that.

Then someone somewhere invented the GPS.  Cue singing angels and halos.  My grandpa, uncle, and husband probably heaved sighs of relief.  No more phone calls from a frantic, lost and horribly cranky Jenn!

Ha! That's what they thought.  You see I have a problem.

I don't trust my GPS.  I believe that snooty bitch with her supposedly soothing voice is lying to me.  I am convinced she is going to get me lost.  Sometimes she says "Turn right here" but there is no here!  No road.

Turn right where you GPS whore?  I don't see a road!!!

Sometimes right when she's led me to the middle of nowhere and I am some place that I have never been in my entire life she says "Signal lost."  Then she freezes and refuses to give me directions. She doesn't even answer me when I push all her buttons and yell, "Tell me where I am you GPS bitch!"

I think she gets me lost on purpose.  That GPS bitch is a serial killer and she's trying to kill me.

So then I pick up my cell phone and call my exasperated grandfather who does not believe the GPS is actually a serial killer and does not understand how I keep getting lost despite the GPS in the car.  He always gives me directions anyway. He is fooled by her soothing voice, but I'm not. I remain convinced the GPS whore is trying to kill me.