If GPS navigators were human, they wouldn't be so annoyingly calm

My family recently had our first experience with the modern miracle of having a GPS navigation system in our car. We were on vacation, didn’t know our way around and ordered one for our rental car. We figured if it didn’t actually prevent the occasional threats of imminent divorce, it would at least reduce the number of arguments over directions.

At first, it was wonderful. “Turn right in 500 feet and stay left,” it instructed in a calm, if somewhat stiff, female voice. (A female voice? Are men used to taking instructions from their wives? Are women more likely to believe directions from another woman?)

We followed our lady’s instructions faithfully and were astonished when we arrived at our intended destination without error. No more maps! No more asking random strangers for directions! No more pointing fingers at A) the driver, B) the passenger-seat navigator, or C) the back-seat driver.

As we became increasingly dependent on her unerring commands, we discovered we were beginning to view her as a person. When we deviated from her course to, say, duck into a gas station, we wanted to explain what was happening. “Your directions are fine, we just need to make a quick stop on the way. It’s OK!”

But GPS was always calm and in control. She did not judge us or ask us for explanations. She simply said, “recalculating,” and started over to get us back on track.

Over time, though, this persistently neutral voice began to get annoying. “OK, we’re stopping at this gas station AND the liquor store down the street on our way back to the hotel. You’re going to have to recalculate three more times. HA!”

But, no matter how hard we made her work, she never seemed to mind. Even when, in a particularly juvenile stunt, we performed several large figure eights in a mall parking lot to see how quickly we could make her recalculate, she didn’t get upset.

We began to hate her unwaveringly calm recalculations. “Hey! We ignored your directions 10 times in the last three minutes! Get mad already!”

We could only imagine what she should REALLY say. “Turn right in 500 feet,” followed by “turn right in 200 feet,” followed by “DOH! You missed it!” and a slightly annoyed “REcalculating.”

This, of course, quickly deteriorated into speculating what a human would say: “Turn right in 500 feet,” followed by “Turn right in 200 feet,” followed by “Turn right RIGHT NOW! NOW, I said! Oh, my GOD, I can’t believe you missed it again! What kind of idiot can miss a right turn six blocks in a row? Where the hell do you think you are going? Am I even turned ON?”

We’d had our fun and now had confidence that we knew our way around town. So we turned the freaky voice off.

It was then, of course, that we got un-be-LIEV-ably lost. Of course, we tried to reach our calm, collected voice, but it was too late.

“Your unsuccessful attempts at GPS navigation have exceeded the maximum number of errors allowed for this program,” she said with (was it our imagination?) a touch of righteous self-satisfaction. “Please contact www.garmin.com for assistance. Powering down now.”

Karen Smith of Colorado Springs is fortunate she lives near Pikes Peak — that way she always knows which way is west.

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