Mapless in Gomorrah
We left home to drive down to the Bay Area last week and immediately ran into an 8 mile backup in Seattle, a dark omen, when the police closed the freeway for a pedestrian fatality, some guy trying to cross 8 lanes of rush hour traffic, a human possum, victim of Darwinian laws. Two days later we reached the outskirts of Oakland after a straight shot down the western side of America, no turns, just vacationers and trucks mainlining an artery toward the porous borders … when the mizzus’ cellphone ran out of juice.
In the digital world we now find ourselves in, losing that cell’s GPS was equivalent to Lewis and Clark losing Sacajawea. Winter would find us months later, emaciated and stark raving mad up some dead end box canyon above the hills of Oakland, another tourist cautionary tragic tale hyped to sell GPS apps and enhanced cellphones. Don’t let THIS happen to YOU!! If they’d only carried the Apple 10,000 fully loaded with locator apps, distress signals and emergency instructions. Don’t leave home without it!
The urban jungle, in case you are like us and travel primarily, if at all, on two lane backroads, is a blackberry thicket of 70 mph fast lane changes, intersecting bridges, sudden tunnels and too many highways, all in all a spider’s web for the unwary or the GPS-less. Not wanting to meet the spider, I stopped to ask directions at a mall that appeared at the first exit we took off interstate something or other. A half hour to find parking and finally we entered the three level grandeur of a suburban Macy’s. Salvation in the Consumer Cathedral!!
And sure enough, like St. Pete at the pearly gates of a Sunday School heaven, a customer service gentleman smiled as I approached. “Can I help you?” he asked. “Indeed,” I replied, “I need to get directions to Oakland from your grand cathedral.
He smiled beneficently, glad to assist a confused customer. “You need to get yourself a GPS.” I thanked him, of course, a Neanderthal lost in the rearview. And that, right there, is why men do not stop and ask directions.
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Tags: Driving without a Map, No GPS No Cry, Why Men Don't Ask for Directions