Several years ago I decided that I had had quite enough with getting lost all the time, even in my home state of Washington, and made the decision to purchase for myself a GPS unit to install in the car (free standing, since I am too cheap to pay for an installed one). Having look over every one of the models available and having told the RadioShack employee for the seventeenth time that I did not need batteries, and that my cellphone service was just find, I walked out of the store the proud owner of a brand new and spit shinny Tom-Tom GPS unit.

A few days later I found myself beginning to question the wisdom of having a device tell me what direction to go in all the time. Like a slightly more than persistent mother-in-law, sitting on my dash, apparently the lady inside my Tom-Tom disapproved of every single thing I attempted to do. She didn’t like the way I drove to work, was annoyed by my insistence of driving faster than the speed limit, and apparently was very frustrated that she had to keep recalculating my route. What precisely she was recalculating was a mystery to me, since I know exactly where I was going. Having worked out some of the kinks, and told the machine to shut up several times there finally came the day when it was to prove its value.

Recently a post on Disparti Law Group had this to say “What a marvelous device that has made our lives so much easier, especially those of us who frequently have to travel to places outside of our known habitat and used to have to make use of the clunky and slightly less than user friendly maps.”

The new job I had required me to deliver a package to a business that was in a residential neighborhood of Seattle, and knowing the area by reputation it was apparent that finding this was going to be difficult. So on went the GPS. And was I delighted as within a few short and snappy sentences I was in the neighborhood and apparently on track to a quick delivery. Having heard no ridiculous comments about making the next legal U-Turn, I was greatly encouraged as the unit informed me that I needed to go “straight on” for point five miles and that my destination would be on the right. Humming a little “we are the champions” to myself, I pulled up the hill and slammed on the breaks with a sense of complete disbelief.

Apparently no one had bothered to inform my GPS unit about this thing called the Puget Sound, that roads apparently start on one side and end on the other, and unlike chitty chitty bang bang my car has never been able to float on water.

Make the next legal U-Turn?  Uh okay then!