A true story, and a laugh!

During Mary's odyssey of hospital rooms, she had one roommate, I'll call her Judy, from a little place in CA you never heard of. Someplace not close to Stockton or Sacramento but not far from those towns either. A nice lady, probably in her 50s.

Two of Judy's lady friends showed up for a visit one morning. They arrived exhausted from their 2.5 hour drive down from where ever. Nice people, friendly and as chatty as they come. Their conversation is what needs to be recorded for posterity.

"Judy, the drive was simpler today because I used your GPS. Thank you. I only got lost a few times with the GPS telling me where to go. It was a little difficult to use because I had it between my legs as I drove." said visitor #1. She had already told me this was her 4th visit since they transferred Judy from Podunk's hospital a week or so ago for her surgeries.

Judy, "Why didn't you attach it to the dashboard or the windshield"

"I couldn't get the suction cups to stick on anything." says V1. "I had the 52 page manual but I couldn't find anything on how to make the suction cups work. I licked the suction cups and that didn't seem to work either. So the best placed seemed to be between my legs so it was secure and wouldn't fall and break. I could look down while driving to see the map. I thought maybe the suction cups only worked in your Taurus and not in my car."
Judy, "There is a little bar you move to make the suction cups work."

V1, "Oh, like a lever? I saw that but I didn't know what it did.

"Yes, a lever. That's a better way to describe it." says Judy.

"Judy, do you have any cartridges for the GPS? It has a slot for a cartridge and I wondered if you had any cartridges for it." says V2.

Judy responds, "My grand nephew set it up for me because you have to...um... put it in Internet it to get it started. I don't really understand what the cartridges are for and he didn't explain it to me. And, no, I don't have any cartridges. I think you need cartridges to make it talk to you while you are driving."

V1, "Oh, it talks just fine. Except when its between your legs you really cannot understand what its saying. So, I would just look down and study the map while driving." Let me see, assume 60 miles per hour on a California freeway (88 feet per second) while V1 studies the GPS display in her lap to figure out what it has just told her to do. If she takes 5 seconds, that is 440 feet or about 30 car lengths. I hope they get home safely.

"Judy, I discovered something else about your GPS. You can unplug it from the car and take it inside to program it. There is enough..um..electricity from the built in thingy so you can program it while sitting at a table way from the car." V1 says.

"Really, you mean I don't have to sit in a hot car to program it?" says Judy.

"Nope, it works just fine because it has built in electricity." says V1, "Although I was not able to program it to avoid certain areas or roads like 101."

Then visitor #2 says, "It worked pretty good but it made her get on Highway 101. I just hate 101 and didn't want her to take it. That's why we were later than planned. I made her get off of 101 several times." The patient, Judy, I should comment, had been doing a perfect impersonation of a chunk of granite since my arrival before 7AM and wouldn't have known if the sun stopped in the sky today. But, she now knew her visitors were late.

For those who know they bay area, it it virtually impossible to get from no place near Stockton or Sacramento and arrive at Stanford unless you are willing to drive way out of your way to avoid Highway 101. Which, apparently, the two visitors tried to do by simply getting off of the freeway. What a GPS will do, of course, is give you instructions to get back to the same freeway you just left--Highway 101 in this case. Hence, V1's comment about getting lost three times during the drive apparently at the insistence of V2.

OK, at this point I am dying and trying to not laugh my ass off. The suction cup lever I understand--sort of. The description of a memory card just about had me choking to death but when the concept of a built in battery was beyond them, I thought I was going to laugh out loud. Then to discover they were deliberately leaving Highway 101 only to have the GPS direct them right back to the route they were trying to avoid, well, I had to bite my cheek!

"Judy, the model you bought is much better than the model our friend Sally bought." says V1.

"Oh, why?" says Judy.

"Sally is really frustrated with hers. It only talks French to her and her French is not so good anymore because its been so many years since she studied it so she basically only looks at the maps while she is driving." says V1.

Judy responds, "I think she can change that but she has to put it in the Internet to fix it." At this point, I had to leave the room. 'put it in the internet'? She really said that--twice!