Yesterday's misadventures were all my fault. I am stating this up front. A friend of mine had asked a question pertaining to getting lost, and not being one to pass up the opportunity for snark, I responded that I can't possibly get lost anymore now that we have a GPS. Naturally, the powers that be considered this a challenge.
I used to get lost all the time. The family joke was that I would get lost backing out of our driveway, and it was probably true. Eventually, Pig, who is irritatingly good at navigation, took pity on me and found a GPS for us to use. In order for me to feel better about carrying on conversations with the GPS, we named it Earl. A typical conversation goes like this:
Earl: "In 300 feet, turn left onto [street name]."
Me: "Which road, Earl? There are two lefts possible!"
Earl: "In 200 feet, turn left onto [street name]."
Me: "Gah! I'm just going to hope you mean this one, Earl!"
Earl: "Recalculating."
Me: "Dang it."
The kidlets love it when Earl has to recalculate. They often encourage whoever is driving to make incorrect turns or take a different route just to hear his mechanical little voice argue with us.
Yesterday, Pig was at the wheel and I had programmed Earl to take us to Rooster's doctor's appointment. She sees a number of specialists due to tummy issues, so even Pig with his directional know-how doesn't always remember the exact route to each and every doctor. Earl started off by telling us we were going the wrong direction. The kidlets were thrilled by the concept of Earl "recalculating" at every intersection, but Pig was convinced that Earl would eventually behave once he realized we were going to take the Turnpike whether he wanted us to or not.
As we approached every exit on the Turnpike, Earl pleaded with us to take it. He begged, he argued, he cajoled, and then once again recalculated. Earl had done this in the past and would finally settle down once we passed a certain exit number, but for some reason, he seemed bound and determined to take us a different way yesterday.
Suddenly, traffic slowed to a crawl. We could see a car fire up ahead. An accident had closed all but one lane, and we inched ahead trying to merge into that lane. We started to worry about being able to get to the doctor's appointment on time and decided to finally listen to Earl once we could get to the next exit.
Earl was triumphant. We were finally listening to his directions! He promptly directed us off the Turnpike, through a series of ramps and turns until he led us...back onto the Turnpike, but this time headed for home.
By now, I was on my cell phone with the doctor's office, pleading with them to wait for us. Pig had decided that Earl had a screw loose and was deliberately trying to sabotage our drive. Pig ignored Earl's new directions, returned to the Turnpike in our original direction, and managed to remember our correct exit to get us to the doctor's office only a few minutes late. By the time we arrived, everyone was sick of hearing Earl say he was figuring out a new route.
I ran into the office with Rooster while Pig stayed with the other two kidlets in the car and attempted to figure out what went wrong with our usually well-behaved GPS. Turns out that Earl decided the doctor's office was actually in a town an hour and a half north of where it was really located, despite having the correct address entered into his system.
I am not sure what Pig did to Earl while Rooster and I met with the doctor, but Earl was very well-mannered the whole drive home. He calmly relayed directions, did not recalculate once, and even showed us the proper lanes to drive in the whole way. I suspect Earl was threatened with the garbage heap for his behavior on the ride down, but Pig's not admitting anything other than that he fixed the problem.
I'm hoping that Earl will continue to behave for us. If nothing else, I have learned to not taunt fate and claim that I can no longer get lost. Apparently, Earl can hear me when I say that, and eagerly rises to the challenge.
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