My GPS system has two settings in which to choose your route: faster or shorter. After a recent 3500 mile road trip, I discovered it also had some unofficial, hidden settings which include “Most Convoluted” and “Urban Thrill seeker.”

On the way up north, GPS and I were BFF’s. We basically followed one road for 800 miles, so neither of us worked too hard and got along well when the only instruction she gave was, “Follow the road.” I sang her navigational praises at every opportunity.

Somewhere along the LIE, our relationship took a wrong turn.

I guess I’ll never know what triggered it--was I too flirtatious with an ATM?--but suddenly I found myself on the way home to Florida by way of 42nd Street, two subway tunnels and a Chinese sloe boat along the Hudson.

Under no modern definition was midtown Manhattan during rush hour in a mini van with Sunshine State plates faster or shorter.

I expressed my concern.

“What the @#$#? Why are you taking me through Times Square????”

Turn right in 500 feet, then an immediate left and then keep right.

“Uh, you do know those sound more like a Twister game than driving directions? I think that will land me with my left foot on that red hot dog cart.”

Now, keep left and take the fourth exit off the traffic circle.

“That’s not a traffic circle, it’s the ferris wheel at Coney Island. What crazy setting is this and why are you trying to kill me?”

Recalculating due to updated traffic information.

“That’s GPS-speak for you don’t know where we are right now, right?”

Perhaps if you had taken the Throgs Neck instead of the Whitestone bridge, we wouldn’t be in this predicament.

“That was two days ago! And why are you talking to me?”

And would it kill you to spring for a tank of premium every once in a while?

“Wait, back up a minute. Wait No!!! Don’t back up, we’re on Canal street and I don’t think this is the time for knockoff Gucci bags. Where is this sudden harshness coming from?”

Would you like to play a game? How about a nice game of chess?

At this point I may have blacked out--or it could just have been the reception interruption in the Holland Tunnel--but the GPS went from being my BFF to “the Demon in the box.”

Before she could had me bypass I-95 in favor of the Appalachian Trail and a rickshaw, I exorcised the car with a fuse change, St. Christopher medal and a new paper road atlas at the next available rest stop.

Consulting my index finger on the Rand McNally may not have been the most scientific way to determine the Faster or Shorter route, but it sure ended up to be the Most Reliable and Least Resemblance to a Feature Sci-Fi Film from The 80’s.

©2010 Tracey Henry

Divamail me!