The GPS from Hell

So Monday was one of those days where too much happens and you end up having to recover a full day after. It was my first day full-time on a jobsite. Yup, with my fancy construction boots (lovely shade of sandy yellow) and a hard-hat that's two sizes larger (Marvin the Martian comes to mind). It was also my husband's birthday, but that's for another post.

This jobsite is about an hour drive from my house, over the hills, across the beltway, past the CVS on the corner, across the $1.5 million house for sale. Needless to say, I was completely unfamiliar with the route to get here. So yes, I did map-google this jobsite as a backup (and boy am I thankful for it), but I've become accustomed to my GPS. As it happens, "my" GPS was celebrating exactly one year since it was given as a birthday gift to...my husband.

I take it everywhere, just in case I get lost, or in case I need to get to a new jobsite. It works great. Usually.

Before I continue maybe I should explain this GPS thing to those among you who have never had the pleasure of renting a car or don't have geeky friends and brothers. And if you've already seen what a GPS is and what it does, you can skip this part to the line of *****.

The GPS is a complex device that uses some higher intelligence than mine and is somehow capable of finding the dozen satellites that are circling above us. I won't get into the technical description of how it does it or what's in it, but basically it's a small palm sized box with one button "on/off". (I love devices with just one button! Can't go wrong with those.) When you turn the device "on" the blue light comes on, indicating that bluetooth technology is in process. Bluetooth technology means only devices with blue teeth can communicate with one another. If it has yellow rotting teeth, it can't communicate. Or something to that effect. Well, this bluetoothed GPS can communicate with my iPAQ, a PDA device. My iPAQ has many useful programs installed on it, ranging from my calendar, my contacts, Scrabble (useful only for those who remember what the board looks like), and a map program. This map program is key to my GPS function.

Mr. GPS communicates with Mrs. PDA (via bluetooth) and Mr. GPS tells the Mrs. - "I spy with my eye, Satellites up above, and I now know that you are in the following longitude and latitude." Mrs. PDA gets all excited and says, "Oh, in that case, I know exactly where you are, let me pull out the location on the map on earth where I believe you are." Mrs. PDA then shows this tiny arrow in the middle of the screen, located on a road (hopefully) on the exact location where I am.

My PDA

So what happens when I drive? My PDA is mounted nicely on the dash, next to my cellphone. Inbetween them is the small box-like GPS. (Sometimes I feel like I'm launching a missile from my car). The PDA screen shows me a map of where I am, with the arrow in the middle. As I drive, the map on the screen keeps moving, so that way the arrow is always located on the right street. I can instruct my map program to find the way to a certain location and then my PDA talks back and tells me which turns to make and which exit to take. Sometimes it can get rather insistent when it thinks you're going the wrong way, and will repeatedly tell you, "Make a U turn"..."Make a U turn." Thankfully, it does know where it is legal and where I should just carry on driving and make several turns to get back on track.

Off Road

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Back to Monday morning - I got in the car, all anxious about my new jobsite, placed my cellphone in its harness, turned the GPS on, put my PDA on the mounting device, entered my new destination's address and began driving. Everything seemed perfectly fine and normal for the first 45 minutes of my drive. Two states later, and my GPS is "off roading" me to hell. Well, it was Virginia, what could I expect...

As I approached the Pentagon, my PDA showed the arrow turning around and the streets on the map are no longer streets I recognize. This is not uncommon when the PDA and GPS are having an argument (it's an ego thing, I believe). But typically the Mr. apologises and things get back to normal within a minute.

Not this time.

Figures this would be my first day on the job and something would go seriously wrong.

So this map is now showing me driving through every non-street location on the map. Not only that, but apparently I was skipping over every possible road only to land on the piece of land inbetween them. Mind you, at this point I'm actually driving straight on a highway at 65 mph (for the law enforcement personnel among you - I was driving 55 mph just like every other law abiding citizen on the beltway). Now I get a bit annoyed because I really need to know which exit to take off from this hell road. But my PDA and GPS are in a divorce court, and the screaming match ensues. My PDA shouts, "Make a left turn".."make a right turn".."Find the nearest road".."merge"..."make a u turn"..."make a u turn!" .."MAKE A U TURN!" Short of slapping it silly and throwing it out the window I decide to smile at my fellow drivers who are honking at me and wondering why I look so confused. My PDA continues to admonish me for not driving on the road and keeps identifying me as "off-roading" by the Pentagon. With all the directions it gave me, I swear to God, if I had done any of those turns and illegal U'ees, the police would have arrested me for drunken driving and locked me for life! As well they should with this insane GPS.

Eventually I decide to take an exit and find a place to stop and regroup, meditate, and re-evaluate if I really want my job that bad. I also revert to plan B, call my husband and ask him to google-map me and tell me how to get to my desired destination without getting arrested. So I stop my car and observe my PDA, and there it is - the arrow and the streets moving as if I were high on adrenaline and driving a Hummer. And I'm thinking, maybe I didn't quite park and it thinks I'm still in motion. I look outside at other reference points, and sure enough all the trees are standing still, the parked car in front of me without the driver is at a stand-still and the old man across the street is walking in a relatively normal speed. I think back to my physics lessons, Einstein and relativity theories and I conclude that I'm indeed at a full stop. But no, my PDA shows me driving off-road on streets I have not seen on the way, at 35 mph. So I dial my husband's number, and as I wait for him to answer, my PDA starts flashing red in the corner admonishing me for going past the speed limit at 55 mph (mind you, I'm on a side street where the speed limit is 25 mph, and I'm parked!). Then I watch in amazement as my supposed driving-speed is exceeding not only the road's speed limit but some other vehicular-possible driving limits. It flashes like crazy as my speed limit goes up to 75 mph...120 mph...(this is when I double-check to make sure I didn't accidently switch to km instead of miles)...175 mph, 250 mph, 371 mph ! And my husband answers the phone as I'm in stitches from laughter. I then request my husband for "Permission to land my aircraft." At this point my husband is convinced my headache is a bit more serious than what he was led to believe that morning. I proceeded to explain that according to my GPS my Honda Civic had a lift-off by the Pentagon and I'm flying at a comfortable pace of 371 mph over Arlington.

I check the sky above to see if there are any top-secret Pentagon released stealth aircrafts following my car and homing in on my GPS and I spot nothing. I decide to grab my demon-possessed PDA and soft reboot it. When in doubt, reboot.

After a minute or two, my PDA and GPS have forgotten their argument and begin cooperating. I find out that I was a mere 200 feet from my destination. Never thought I'd be so happy to arrive anywhere.

n.b. (nizkarti ba'davar, or P.S. for the English speaking among you): I tried my GPS again the following day and sure enough, at the Pentagon (AGAIN) I was joyfully off-roading according to my GPS. My husband tells me that there must be too many Satellites there, causing my GPS an overload of data flow. So if anyone from the Pentagon is reading this, cut it out! It's not so amusing, guys.

Finding Satellites