Angela Dove: Award-Winning Writer

The guy behind the car rental counter at the San Francisco airport dropped the small black case onto the counter. It landed with a clunk that should have tolled like a warning in my ears.

I eyed it warily. “What’s that?”

“GPS,” he snapped, unzipping the bag and removing what appeared to be a small television screen, numerous wires, and the perfect projectile for the world’s most serious bean bag toss. He plugged stuff in, hooked things together, hit various buttons.

I cleared my throat. “And is there an instruction manual?”

He regarded me frankly. “You haven’t used one of these before?”  His tone stopped just short of implying that I was a complete moron.

“Not . . . as such.” I watched him shake his head sadly. “But, er, I’ve seen other people use them.” This was true. My best friend up in Jersey has one. Hers is a Magellan. And that exhausts my knowledge of it.

He took pity on me then. “So, OK, here’s what you do.” He flipped the little TV screen around and started punching buttons. “You hit AGREE to this, then it takes you to this screen. Let’s say you’re hungry, and you want some Chinese food, so you hit this button here—” I couldn’t see it.  “—and it says ‘What kind of food’ and you pick Chinese. See?”

“What I really want is to get to my hotel.” I pulled out the itinerary my publicist had emailed me. “How do I get from here to Merced?”

The guy took my itinerary and typed in the street address. Then he hit another button, and the GPS decided that it would take me approximately 95 minutes to get there. I looked at my watch. 8:30 Pacific time. That meant I was experiencing 11:30 PM. A full hour past my bedtime. On the other hand, I was excited about the California leg of my book tour, so I figured adrenaline and a drive-through coffee could pull me through.

It took another 30 minutes for a small car to come available, then about 10 minutes for my tired brain to adjust the seat, the mirrors, figure out how to plug in the GPS and situate its sandbag on the dashboard. At last, I was exiting the airport, and the soothing electronic voice of the GPS was telling me to turn right and left, and I was on a highway. It was so easy.

What the guy behind the car rental counter did not tell me was that, if traffic is rerouted during highway construction, the GPS may well believe that you have left the highway altogether. It will then reconfigure your route based on the assumption that your starting point is on “Access Road” instead of Interstate 99.  And that’s a really important thing to know about a GPS system.  As is the fact that if your GPS system says it is “reconfiguring” your route, that’s electrolingo for “We’re totally lost.”

“Exit right,” said the soothing electronic voice on the GPS system.

“Are you sure?” I asked. “Because I think we’re supposed to stay on the highway.”

“Exit right.”

“Okey-dokey.”

“Turn left in point five miles.”

“Do you realize we’re in the middle of nowhere?”

“Turn left in 500 feet.”

“There is no left. Are you sure you know where we are?”

“Reconfiguring. Turn left in two miles.”

“We’re lost, aren’t we? ”

“Turn left in one mile.”

“That’s a closed Wal-Mart.”

“Reconfiguring.”

In the end, the GPS and I took a very circuitous three-hour trip to the hotel, passing en route what were, in daylight hours, possibly very scenic views of assorted down town areas, city halls, and the occasional crack house. However, considering that it was 3 o’clock in the morning, I did not fully appreciate the tour. And as I collapsed, fully dressed, on the bed that night, I vowed to use the GPS only in the event that I wanted Chinese food.