Help Me, Obi-Wan Kenobi you`re my only hope!

 Princess Leia has really fallen on hard times. This little article should bring a smile to your face. Enjoy it, I know I did.

My daughter has a GPS that she was given as a gift last December. For her, it was a necessity, as she has the sense of direction of a peapod, not that I know for sure peapods have a bad sense of direction, but I’m guessing they do at least for the purposes of this story. Anyway, since she received it she has been trying to get me to use it as well. I kept telling her I didn’t need it. I have lived on Long Island all my life,and have a very good sense of direction. I know all the streets and have been almost everywhere; at least enough to find my way and if I do get lost, find my way back to an area I know. But she just kept pushing; she is very good at that, if it were an Olympic sport she would have more gold medals than Michael Phelps.

So needless to say when I needed to take my son to a friend’s house in Bethpage the other day, she handed me the GPS and said take it. Knowing that I had never been to this friend’s house before, she saw an opening and relentlessly pursued it until I agreed. I knew the general vicinity of where this kid lived, but I humored her and took the damn GPS out of her hand.

My son and I got in the car and I entered our destination into the device. That was easy enough; I had seen it done by enough people to catch on pretty quick. I then put it in its little holder, started the car and pulled out of the driveway. As we headed in the direction the little voice in the box told me to go we stopped at the neighborhood gas station. As I was pulling in to the lot I hit a bump and the GPS fell out of its holder and onto my lap. I went to grab it and it pulled back out of my hands, as the cord had landed and wrapped itself around the device that moves the passenger seat back and forth and was now tightly wound around it.

I handed my son the credit card and told him to pump the gas while I recovered the GPS and tried to put it back in its holder. Now, I say tried, because there are buttons all around the GPS, the front, sides and top. So every time I tried to hold it and push it into the holder I hit a button with one of my fingers and the next thing I know I am re-routing myself to China. The little voice was going berserk, screens kept changing and the volume would go up and down. As I lamented to myself that this had to have been invented by a man, I was rapidly losing my temper as I now started arguing with this thing while still trying to get it in its housing. Succeeding as my son got back in the car, he listened as I continued to speak to the stupid thing now secured on my dashboard. My son preceded to ask me if I knew I was arguing with an inanimate object to which he was answered with a scowl on my face and a “If you want to still go to your friends house you’ll drop it.”

I pulled out of the gas station and got onto the Sunrise Highway service road. Seconds later the little GPS voice told me to turn onto Sunrise Highway. Well actually what she said was “the freeway”. Now I don’t know whether all of you know this or not, but for those reading this from New York you do; we have no freeways. We have Highways, Parkways, Expressways, streets, roads and more, but we do not have freeways. So as the little GPS bimbo, as I was now affectionately calling her said “freeway” I laughed and responded to her with “Sweetheart this isn’t California.” My son once again laughed and began to point out I was again talking to an inanimate object, but was quickly silenced by the whispered curse that came out of my mouth.

So, I got on Sunrise Highway (not freeway) and seconds later, and I do mean seconds later, the bimbo asked me to get off Sunrise Highway..excuse me  “the freeway” and get back on the service road in order to take the next exit. This perplexed me as several thoughts went through my head at once. The first being, why tell me to get off just so you can tell me to go back on, and the second being, aren’t these things supposed to make your driving experience easier? Yes, I did ask these questions out loud to the little GPS bimbo and yes my son (who apparently is a slow learner, either that or he inherited my families sarcastic gene) once again pointed out that I was talking to a machine.

So I follow the bimbo’s advice and get off the next exit. After traveling on thiat road for about 2 miles or so she begins to tell me to prepare to get on the parkway, sorry the freeway at the next exit. Now, as a fan of the late great George Carlin, all I could think was how do you prepare to take the next exit? Exactly what preparations am I supposed to go through? It isn’t a difficult task to turn on your blinker and make your way onto the entrance ramp, I would hardly call it preparing, but at that point I was annoyed at the bimbo and being a little nitpicky. As I realized that she wanted me to get on the Southern State Parkway I released a string of curses as I wondered, why would I have gone almost ten minutes out of my way to get on said parkway, when there is an entrance to the same parkway about six blocks from my house! While once again wondering how this is actually making my driving experience easier. At this point my experience with the GPS had turned into a nightmare, or as I realized later on a funny story to tell. I started to grab the thing and throw it out the window to put myself and the bimbo out of our misery but stopped when my son pointed out that it was my daughters and she would kill me.

So, the GPS survived, I continued on my merry way to my destination, and then found the off button and gladly pushed it. When I got home I very gently put the GPS back in my daughters hand and told her if she ever thought about giving it to me again I would throw her in the trunk, drive her far out on the Island, drop her and the bimbo off and she could find her way back with her precious GPS since she seemed to like it so much. As for me, I will continue to drive on my own without a GPS and will do quite nicely. If ever I am in California however, I will be sure to take her with me, since she seems to think that is where she is anyway. Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi…at least you had the force!