I don’t know what it is about her and I.
We just don’t see eye to eye. She says something and I end up arguing with her.
I’m talking about my traveling companion – that female voice that comes out of our GPS. The one I simply refer to as “her.”
I recently had to travel to P.E.I. for a meeting. My husband was swordfishing so I left the kids behind. It was too hard to do the vacation thing solo with the kids and a meeting.
But I did have her traveling with me. As we approach Digby she tells me to turn off of the highway. I was going to McDonalds anyway, but I had no clue where she was going.
When I got back on the highway she was adamant that I go back to Digby. Every exit I approached she was telling me to turn right, turn left or make a u-turn. At one point I was crossing a bridge when she insisted I make a left turn at that very instant.
“Uh, lady,” I said. “I’m on a bridge.”
When I clicked on a larger map on the GPS, her insistence finally made sense. The route she had selected went across the Bay of Fundy. She wanted me to take the ferry to New Brunswick. Was she going to cough up the money for the crossing, I wondered?
At first I thought she was stupid, until I remembered my rental car had a New Brunswick licence plate on it. Maybe there was a method to her madness.
I continued on the highway but around Windsor she was up to her old tricks. She had mapped out a shortcut to Caribou where I could take the ferry, but I planned on taking the Confederation Bridge. Oddly enough the woman who was so adamant that I go through New Brunswick now wanted no part of that.
I could almost detect a tone of annoyance in her voice every time she said “recalculating” when I didn’t follow her instructions.
The next day my meeting ended around 3:15 p.m. I and some other newspaper people intended to take the 4:30 p.m. ferry back to Nova Scotia. I got in my car and turned on the GPS to help me get out of downtown Charlottetown. All I got was nothing. My GPS wasn’t working.
I could almost detect a tone of annoyance in her voice every time she said “recalculating” when I didn’t follow her instructions. -
I couldn’t help but appreciate the irony. Yesterday it was all she could do to get me on a ferry. Now that I need to get to the ferry she has nothing to offer. I shout out to a couple of guys leaving the building that my GPS isn’t working. Follow us, they tell me.
We go through some downtown streets and after we leave Charlottetown I see my gas tank light is on. Great, I’m on empty and we’ve just passed a sign that says the ferry is 45 kilometres away. I get word to the guys that I’m going to pull over at the next gas station but shortly after that they make a left turn. I think they’re leading me to a gas station so I follow them. But a few minutes later, for as far as the eye can see, there is nothing but the road and trees.
Are they ditching me?
I later found out they were taking a shortcut to the ferry. Unfortunately for me their shortcut bypassed every gas station between Charlottetown and the ferry.
Okay, now I’m freaking out.
In life people set goals for themselves. At this moment my goals are to get on and off the ferry without having to push my car.
As I drove off the ferry my fingers were crossed on both hands and I was praying to God that I not run out of gas. At least by now I’ve got some help. My GPS is working and she tells me I only have to drive 5.9 km to get to the nearest gas station – although in my head 5.9 km feels like 59 km.
When you think about it, though, I had driven from Charlottetown, P.E.I. to Pictou, N.S. on an empty tank of gas.
Good gas mileage, I suppose, but I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s far too stressful.
With a full tank of gas I patted her and said, “Lady, let’s go home.”
“Go through the roundabout and take the fourth exit,” she says.
A roundabout?
Let me guess, there’s a ferry on the other side.
