OMGPS.

Class tomorrow.  Instead of doing something productive, I am boozing and blogging.  By boozing I mean "drinking a beer slow enough for it to no longer be cold by the time I'm done," but I want alliteration dammit.

Disclaimer: I have a terrible sense of direction.  I have to be told how to get to a place about a dozen times before I can do it on my own, I never have any clue where north or south or any direction is, and I need about seven minutes of notice if I have to turn (eight if it's a left turn).  So, hypothetically, a GPS would be the best possible thing for me to own.

Hypothetically is half right.  If I already kind of know where I'm going, or I'm just checking an exit number, or I need to get to a highway but can find my way once I get there, the thing is pure gold.  However, if I already know EXACTLY where I'm going or have no clue, it's a disaster, as I found out today (and my long-suffering sister got to experience... but I really don't feel too bad since she napped two times in the hour and forty five minute drive from PA to Baltimore.)

If I already know exactly where I'm going, the GPS does nothing but make me panic.  It'll tell me a different direction to go than what I'm used to, and just make me scared.  This is why I turn it off when coming home from Nova: I get over the Goethals (aside: I have hairs wider than this bridge) and the Verrazano, and the lovely GPS automatically gets an electronic hard-on for the BQE.  I HATE the BQE and refuse to take it, so I turn the thing off and go my own way.

If I have no idea where I'm going, I both don't trust the thing, and can't follow its directions.  Why are we going north?  This road doesn't sound familiar.  Do I turn here?  Wait, HERE?  WAIT, WHERE'S THE GODDAMN TURN?!  You've got to be kidding me; I missed it. 
It's a blast.  I also adore the thing's inability to pronounce anything other than a profession or an Anglo first name (it got confused with "Charlesmeade Street"), so that just adds to my confusion.

And the voice.  Let's not even start with the voice.  Andrew deserves a shout out, here, because my lovely worse half decided it would be a great idea to do the GPS voice for a 25-minute car ride.  Normally, I have no problem striking him, but I was driving so he got away with it.  I think the voice is meant to be soothing, but to me it's grating, mostly because of the incorrect pauses and inflections in the sentence.  Therefore, I react incorrectly.

GPS: "In .5 miles, turn right onto exit 12."
Normal person: "Okay, the turn's coming up."
Me: "AWESOME, GPS, I'll totally count the stupid mile markers until I have to turn.  I know that's the exit, you idiot.  And I have to turn right?  No WAY I figured I'd have to throw this Toyota in reverse to accomplish that feat!  Thank God I have you!!!"

GPS: "In 64 miles, turn left to stay on I-95."
Normal person: "Wow, this is gonna take a while."
Me: "FANTASTIC.  Did you really have to tell me that this part of the drive was going to be as long as watching all of the Land Before Time movies back-to-back?  When PEOPLE give directions, they just say it's gonna take forever, or some variant.  Normal PEOPLE do not give me linear measurements of the Goddamn Oregon Trail I have to traverse to get to Baltimore.  Wanna tell me the cubic centimeters of gas I have left in my tank?  How about the degrees Celsius I have to reach so that you melt into a tiny pile of plastic and missed satellite connections?  WHAT NOW."

GPS: "Recalculating."
Normal person: "Gosh darn, I guess I missed the street it told me to turn on."
Me: "F*** YOU AND ALL YOUR ANCESTORS. MAPS, COMPASSES, EVEN THE SUN."

So maybe I've got a bit of an anger problem. I think it's that I expect the thing to function as a low-rent form of Apparition and when it still actually takes time to get me somewhere, I get bored and angry.

I also think that a truck driver on 695 caught me singing "Change In My Life" super loudly in what was essentially a bass voice.  Sexy.  Whatever.  I been lonely, I been cheated, I been misunderstoooood...