You Can’t Go Home Again

I do love my gadgets. I was one of the first to get an iPhone, because I was blinded by lust for its touch screen. Of course, I felt like a chump when Steve Jobs lowered the price, upped the gigabytes and opened up the elite iGroup to the masses.

One gadget I couldn’t justify until now was a GPS device. GPS stands for Global Positioning System, which essentially connects your dashboard with a satellite that tracks your every move. I think what bothered me was the fact that somebody, somewhere would be keeping track of me every time I left the driveway. Maybe I watch too many James Bond movies.

I was ready to sacrifice my privacy after getting totally lost in an undesirable part of San Francisco. As I drove around, frantically looking for “to 101 South” signs, the story of my friend’s carjacking kept running through my head. She and her husband had lost their valuables, their car, and their peace of mind when a gang of thugs jumped into their vehicle at a stoplight when they took a wrong turn after attending a Giants game.

I knew that my safety would be enough to convince Keeper to buy a GPS device, but with gas going for nearly $5.00 a gallon, there was an economic reason as well. “Just think!” I told my husband. “Every time I get lost and have to double back, it costs us at least $2.99!” For the record, I do get lost often, but it would take more than 100 wrong turns to justify the price of this doohickey.

We got the new toy on Saturday, and on Saturday night plugged it into the cigarette lighter and told it where we wanted to go-a theater on Sutter St. in San Francisco.

I also asked it to look for a parking garage and programmed in our address so that it would know where “home” was.

Off we went, the digital screen showing our progress and the pleasant but authoritative voice saying things like “Continue on U.S. 101 for 7.2 miles.”

Keeper was enthralled. “Look! You can see the bay!” He meant on the screen, not out the window on the right, where we usually see it.

Truth be told, part of my reason for getting the GPS was to replace Keeper as my navigator. He’s the kind of co-pilot who unfolds the map all the way and manages to make a lot of noise doing so. Plus, he doesn’t recognize the importance of folding it back up the right way. To top it off, when I ask, “Is this the right exit?” he replies “Give me a minute” while the exit goes whizzing past.

Our friendly GPs won’t let me miss an exit. I get a warning that it’s coming up, a reminder when it’s time to turn, and a preview of my next turn.

If I do miss an exit, it says “recalculating” and gets me back on track. It does not swear or tell me that I have no sense of direction, like the voice that speaks in my head.

Once we found the theater (or rather, the theater was found FOR us) we made our way to the parking garage, guided by the disembodied voice coming from the dashboard. I unplugged the device and tucked it out of sight.

After the play and some excellent paella, we got back in the car and asked our new friend to guide us home. She had a little trouble locating a satellite, so we headed blindly downhill, following the “101 South” signs. At the stoplight on Mission St., we achieved satellite linkage. I pushed the buttons called “home” and “go.”

By this time I could see the freeway. However, the device, which we had named Margo, instructed us to make an immediate right. She spoke with such authority that I turned abruptly. “She must know a better way!” I said to Keeper. Such a clever girl, our Margo!

We continued following her directions and noticed that the neighborhood was looking familiar. There was Union Square. There was the parking garage. Yes, we were listening to a machine that didn’t know where “home” was. She had taken us back to the theater.

I still love Margo, but she has to learn who’s boss.