I don’t like people’s dependence on GPS in their cars. I fear it is another device that in the guise of improving people’s lives really makes them less competent. So people do less thinking and less problem-solving. And instead there’s more laziness and passivity. It’s akin to the contact lists on phones that render people completely unaware what someone’s phone number is. If the phone loses power, they are lost. I scoff at that. I like memory. I like knowing numbers and where I’m going. I am not so much of a Luddite that I don’t use Googlemaps, but I know enough not to trust it half the time.

Those GPS things bring people in the vicinity of my house, but not to it. They often tell people to drive up somebody’s backyard to arrive here. As far as I know, no one has done that yet, but it does make me think that there have been an awful lot of flowers sent to me that wound up on my neighbors’ back doorsteps. It’s the only explanation.

My husband bought a GPS before we went on a trip last year. I didn’t want one, but it was his car, so I complained only half as much as I usually would. I couldn’t get the air time I needed to complain more since the GPS woman was talking so much. It amazes me that men are willing to listen to her nagging–“Turn here!!!!”– and not mind the undercurrents of disappointment with just a touch of venom in her voice when she says, “Recalculating”  after he’s missed a turn. I can’t get away with that.

Honest to god, my husband lost his GPS. I had nothing to do with it. Or at least no memory of strangling the other woman.