The Kentucky Derby, baseball and GPS.
How do these subjects without a verb match? They don’t except in some twisted universe.
First, the Kentucky Derby — or more precisely the prep races leading up to the thoroughbred horse race of the year and first leg of the Triple Crown for 3-year-old horses. I missed both prep races this weekend, the Santa Anita Derby won by Goldencents and the Wood Memorial won by Verrazano.
I also missed the Mariners losing to the White Sox, which I probably would have listened to and not watched… but the point is eluding me.
The reason for this merging of whininess is GPS, global positioning system. It is what all now seem to believe is the holy grail of aimless driving.
Imagine if Columbus had GPS. Where would we be?
More to the point, where would he be if my daughter, Katy, was his navigator and had a GPS system? God save him because God certainly did not save me.
Saturday I was patiently taking my daughter to furniture thrift stores to find a dresser. We both love to go to thrift stores to search for whatever. She is much better and more patient than I am.
Katy may be the brainiest, but there are a few areas where she is what we politely call a dumbwad — lacking any sense of direction at all. The issue of the earth being flat or round doesn’t matter, she is lost once she steps out her door, with or without a GPS. Unless she is going to a shopping mall of some sort. She doesn’t need GPS for that. She has a built in homing device for shopping malls.
The incident in question occurred when we were driving to the Goodwill in Ballard. I had been there once and vaguely remembered the way. We got about half way there and Katy decided I was lost and pulled out the stupid GPS on her stupid phone.
She informed me I was going in the wrong direction.
OK, to be a patient dad I listened to her perfectly stupid GPS as we drove over Phinney Ridge to Wallingford and to the U District. I did live in Seattle once, but according to Katy all the roads have changed since the olden days.
Finally I made her let me look at the GPS and she had put the wrong direction into it. The address for the Goodwill was northwest, not northeast, which makes a big difference in Seattle, maybe not so much in Enumclaw where time and space apparently stands still for the olden ones like me.
I wonder what happened to learning the cardinal directions and learning how to read a map instead of two streets on a screen. And listening to the voices on those GPS things is like being married to Attila the Grouch’s ornery sister.
I guess I have become olden and Seattle has changed all the roads. Amazing how they still all look the same to me.
Must be some sort of olden days hallucination — just ask my daughter.
