Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Slave to Technology

So, Monday night I went to a friend's goodbye party.  She's moving back to Buffalo.

Now I remember the old days, where someone would call you with a bunch of complicated directions (turn right here, turn left after the second stop sign that's hidden behind the bushes), you'd write them down and then you'd try and read them and drive at the same time.  If it was night time, you'd have your car light on.

Nowadays, it's supposed to be so much simpler. Someone texts you the address, you click on the link and it opens your gps maps app and gives you directions.

Well, the minute I got through the gate to the housing development, my phone ran out of batteries.  The developments here are a bunch of curving roads with weird names that randomly intersect with each other.  What's a girl to do?

Luckily, I can plug my phone into my car (yes, I should have done that in the first place), but then I had to drive around for 10 minutes until it had enough juice to turn on.  I didn't even know the address.

Of course there's a cop car, in front of one of the houses watching me drive in circles.  I was sure he thought I was casing the neighborhood.

When the phone came on, turns out the cop was sitting in front of the house I was going to.  No, the party wasn't getting out of hand. Turns out he was a friend stopping by to say hi.  He only stayed a minute as his radio went off and he had to do some actual law enforcement.

Hmmm, I still don't know if I prefer the old way or the new way.

4 comments:

  1. Funny!
    Really the technology has enslaved us...with us.. there are so many places where we have been 3-4 times but we still need the GPS to go or else we would be lost, we have become so used to the GPS lady that we almost keep our mind shut...to what road we are going on or what turns we r taking:)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Here satnavs etc. are not really reliable and one can find oneself driving down lanes from which there is no escape! I'm a great believer in good old-fashioned map reading. Despite the arguments with the other half, it usually delivers us to our destination safely, in time and in one piece!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have a horrible sense of direction regardless of what I use. I've been known to ignore GPS directions, thinking to myself - "Turn Right? That can't be right." !! :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ha, I hear you! We just got back from Atlantic City and had to find our way to a museum in Smithville and a comic book store in Red Bank the old fashioned way - searching for road signs and even asking directions at a Wawa. The GPS got stuck on the way there and thought we were in Pleasantville the entire time, so it'd only give us directions from that spot.

    ReplyDelete

Feel free to leave your blog link in the comments!