There are two gadgets that were invented, manufactured and marketed specifically for me.
One is the electronic calculator. I simply can’t do math in my head. Not even if my life depended on it. And a boatload of college and graduate-level algebra and statistics courses have done nothing to change that.
Want an example? Here’s one that I swear is true.
I once withdrew 130€ from an ATM and received a fifty and four twenties. I counted them, and they equaled 100€. I counted them again—knowing full well that ATM’s rarely make mistakes—and they still equalled 100€. I counted them a third time (still 100€!) and then complained to the bank manager who—with a look that exhibited both bewilderment and concern—showed me very slowly, very tenderly that 50+20+20+20+20=130.
The other invention is the global positioning system (or “GPS”). And that’s what I’m going to talk about today.
To say that I was born with a poor sense of direction is inaccurate. I was, in fact, born with no sense of direction whatsoever. Over the years, I’ve devised strategies for coping with this shortcoming. The most effective strategy has been to carefully determine the direction in which my destination lies…and then go the opposite direction. That usually does the trick.
But then, while I was in Chicago during Christmas 2005, I took my father’s truck out for a spin and noticed something unusual in the dashboard. It was a GPS.
A GPS! I’d heard about these things, but had never…you know…touched one.
Or caressed one.
Or deep tissue massaged one.
And now, there I was…all alone in that truck…with a GPS.
I punched in an address. Any address.
“1313 COCONUT Grove. Yeah! That’s a good one!”
And as that beautiful little hunka silcone took me by the hand and lovingly deposited me at my destination as if we had made the drive a million times before, I fell madly in love.
The Beatles famously stated that “Money Can’t Buy Me Love.” But in this case, it could. The problem, however, was that the cost of love was 500€-700€. So I sadly observed an indefinite vow of GPS celibacy.
The vow lasted for what seemd to be an eternity. Until…I opened the newspaper a few weeks ago and saw the following announcment in the insert for a Spanish electronics store chain called Media Markt:
“GARMIN STREETFINDER c310 GPS: 199€!”
199€?!!! I leaped into my car and drove in the exact opposite direction of where I knew the store was located. An hour later and 200€ poorer, I was giddily licking the suction cup of my new GPS.
And yesterday morning, I took it on its first, real mission: “GPS, my dear. Take me to IKEA!”
And guess what? The GPS got me to IKEA in record time. And it got me there with neither an iota of stress nor a single U-turn. For me, that’s unheard of!!!
And best of all, that little GPS freed my mind to focus on other, more important things while driving. Like…like…like…well, like COCONUT!
I walked into IKEA feeling like a man with supreme confidence. And I walked out of IKEA 200€ poorer.
But that’s OK, because you know what they say.
“Steel colander for straining pasta: 8€.”
“Drafting table and chair for your daughter’s birthday: 110€.”
“A sense of direction after 39 years of fantasizing about one: Priceless!”
