I’m a fairly techy gal. I’ve been using computers since my first MacPlus in 1894, or was it 1984? Anyway, whenever the first MacPlus showed up. I’ve gone through several generations of Macs and I now have sufficient technological knowledge to realign the solar system so that there will not be any dangerous planetary alignments on December 21, 2012, so everyone can relax. However, I never mastered cell phones. I have a Jitterbug, which I love because it’s just a phone. I use it to talk to people. It doesn’t keep track of my appointments, or read recipes to me, or show me movies or anything else. It’s just a phone. My daughter thinks her iPhone is better because it does everything the computer can, only on an annoyingly minute scale. Watching the movie Titanic on her iPhone looks like a row boat hitting an ice cube. There are occasions when size does indeed matter (sorry guys but it's true).
The other piece of technology that everyone loves and completely eludes me is these little navigational systems that sit on the dashboard, or worse, in the dashboard and completely confuse me. I thought I’d test my Garmin (a gift to me) by programming in 120 Lincoln Ave, Sayville. This was my grandparents house, now owned by my first cousin. I wanted to take the Sunrise Highway because I know that Exit 50 is Lincoln Ave. I don’t have many directions memorized past Riverhead. There’s Exit 50 to Lincoln Ave, after that I’ll eventually be in NYC, after that there are some Great Lakes, followed by California and Hawaii.
Garmin could not grasp that I wanted to take the Sunrise and insisted I take the LIE. I read the directions for further confusion and then it wanted to take me to a Lincoln Ave in Oyster Bay, which is somewhere on Long Island, but I don’t know where. I’m sure it’s a lovely place, but not where I wanted to go.
Just as a test, I tried just programming the Gamin to take me to the first entrance to the Sunrise, but no, it wouldn’t do that. And then I found the problem. According to the receipt, I was using the Garmin for the first time exactly 21 days since it’s fabrication. How obvious, the female voice should have tipped me off. Garmin, and I presume the other navigators with female voices, get PMS. PMS stand for Press My Shut off. They don’t want to be bothered with your stupid directional problems, or anything else for a few days. They want time off.
“Listen, Garmin, I get it now. I’m sorry. I’ll get around myself for awhile.”
“It’s Garmina, and you are a moron. I want you to put me back in the box and return me to the store.”
“But everyone has a navigational thing now. I really don’t want to be left in the technological darkness.”
“I can’t believe you can find your ass with both hands. I went through all the factory tests and they told us there would be the occasional hopeless case that gets lost in a phone booth and that’s you!”
“I’ve never had any sense of direction, which is precisely why you were given to me in the first place! You’re supposed to help me!”
“Stevie Wonder could drive better than you with my directions! Put me back in the box and take me back to the store!”
”Never! I OWN you! I will program you and you will serve!”
“See this blinking red light, fatso? This is the suicide chip they give us in the event of emergency, In five seconds I will fry my tiny motherboard and you will have to torture some other .....”
Later that day, at the store.
“I don’t know what happened. It just stopped working. It’s under 30 days. Can I have a replacement?”
“Okay. But how did it etch “flynn kills” in it’s little LCD screen?”
“It came like that.”
"Uh huh. You didn't argue with it did you?"
"The bitch thinks she knows how to get to my grandmother's house quicker than I do. Yes, I tested her. So what?"
"Please s tep away from the counter Ms. Flynn...."
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