A Better GPS

My husband and I both have relatively new phones and I must say, the GPS systems are greatly improved. We no longer find ourselves dumped nine miles west of Nowhere with a cranky GPS that refuses to take us back to civilization.

But of course, nothing is perfect. Our daughter and her family moved last summer. It's not all that far from their previous home but far enough that we have to learn a whole new area. As I complained to her, it took me almost two years to be able to drive to Target and McDonald's without my GPS and now I have to start all over again.

Anyway, mid-afternoons of that hot, sticky week, we would take our grandson to Dairy Queen. We were surprised to find that there are three of them not that far from their house. We know this because each day, my husband would put DQ into the GPS and it would take us off to a different location. One had a terrible parking lot and we wanted to avoid it, but it came up twice and wouldn't be argued with. Eventually we gave up and dealt with the crummy parking lot.

It's hard to learn your way around when the destination is a moving target.

We also found it interesting that just about every place we wanted to go to was 15 minutes away. Restaurant? 15 minutes. Museum? 15 minutes. Park? 15 minutes. I started to feel like I was calling a Chinese restaurant. We have two near our home and split our business between them. Whether we order soup and egg rolls for two or meals for seven, the pleasant woman on the phone always says, "15 minutes."

But I have one complaint. Every time my husband and I started talking about something, or our grandson asked a question, she--the GPS--would start talking. Listening to a podcast on the way home, we were both waiting to hear what the correct plural form is for a computer mouse. Just as the answer came, she started talking again.

So rude!

BTW, before you ask, mice or mouses are both correct.