Finding Direction: The Wind Vane Chronicles

The thing about guys and their GPSs is that, at least with Tom, he wanted one really badly, but then when he gets one, he doesn’t follow what “she” tells him to do, anyway, so what’s the point?  Kinda like getting married it appears to me.

Before “we” got “ours,” Tom just had to borrow his best friend Ron’s GPS this past July because we were going to . . . Dallas?!?  To his daughter’s house, no less.  Good grief!

Well, sure, we were going on from there over to Grapevine to the Great Wolf Lodge for our big family reunion, but I mean – he can’t find this huge resort in plain sight out in the wide open spaces of Texas?  With the written directions I had in my hands that led you there from any direction you were coming from?

Then . . . and this is the hilarious part . . . it turns out that since the Great Wolf Lodge is only about a year and a half old, it’s not even in the GPSs memory, nor is there any kind of physical address for it to put in the GPS.  You know how Texas is.  Everyone tells you how to get somewhere by telling you where it is in relation to something else.

In this case, it was the Gaylord Texan, an even bigger, taller resort right across the four lane road.  Both are within sight, pretty much, of the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport and it’s not like we’ve never been there before, for goodness sakes.   Besides having been out there numerous times over the years, Tom lived there for several years back in the mid-70s!

I actually saw them both before his GPS said anything and, of course, since “she” was programmed for the Gaylord Texan, she kept, very irritatingly, screeching  at us to “turn left, turn left, turn left, turn left,” when we needed to turn right.

On top of everything else that trip, it was about 115 degrees Farenheit in the shade (the only shade being under the roof of the drive through in front of the lodge) and somewhere up near 130 degrees or higher in the sun baked car (only six months old) out in the parking lot, where it sat for three days.

When we got home to dismantle the black plastic clamp for the GPS, which was mounted to the inside of our windshield, about half of the mount was now permanently glued to the windshield from the heat.

I . . . was . . . not . . . happy.

Although, eventually, Tom took the car to have it detailed and they were able through some miracle product to get the big black circle of residue off the glass.  Or else he surreptitiously had the windshield changed out, which wouldn’t surprise me, either.

But before all of the above occurred last July, Tom had to “practice” programming and using the borrowed GPS, which I promised you last time I would tell you about.  (I was thinking then it was with “our” new GPS, but it was with Tom’s borrowed one.)

He decided to practice on a trip from here over to my retinologist’s office in Gulfport.  It’s normally 55 minutes from door to door, and a trip we’ve made dozens of times over very familiar back roads, so it’s not like he actually needed the GPS to tell him how to get there.  (In fact, come to think of it, he’s not yet used a GPS, ours or otherwise, to go anywhere he didn’t already know where to go, except for maybe a couple of turns into a parking lot or something.)

So, what did he do?  First, he got home from work late to take me, having forgotten what time my appointment was.  It was 15 minutes earlier than he remembered, so we were already running late.

Then, we got 250 yards away from the house and he had to pull over to the side to fiddle with the the thing to get it programmed.  But before he could, he had to look up on the internet on his phone the exact street address of where we’re going (like we didn’t know it when we saw it or where it was).

All that took some 7 minutes and we hadn’t even left our street. Then we got to the road and the most irritating “female” voice you’ve ever heard told us to turn right.  He turned left, going the shortest way.  We kept hearing “turn right, turn right, turn left, turn left, turn right, turn right” for the entire mile to the next intersection, where we turned right and the GPS re-programmed itself, the first of about 20 times it did so on the trip, with that constant aggravating voice ringing in our ears.

Tom has yet to actually follow much of what the GPS has to say, but thank goodness, the voice of ours is pleasant when “she” does say something and it’s not that constant “turn right, turn right” or whatever when we don’t follow directions.

As for me – I really don’t see the point in all of it, myself.  As Cecil commented yesterday, the GPS quite often gives you a much longer route than you need to use, so Tom pays no attention.  I’m much more a believer in printed road maps and my own vision.  You know – looking out the window to see where you are and what the terrain looks like.

Of course, I have a very good sense of direction, so that helps.  (Unlike poor Greg, who we now learn could not even find his way to his bedroom inside his rental house!)  My opinion is that, for the most part, a GPS is just another “boy toy,” the latest electronic gadget for guys.

Tom wants to have one of every one of them, I think.  Or as he says, “I really need this.”

I say, all he really needs is ME!!  I mean, what more could he want?  And I do not have a whining, irritating voice telling him to “turn right, turn right” when he goes the wrong direction.   I just gently help guide him along the way.

Many blessings to each of you today!  Dee