(re-run)
GPS is a wonderful thing. I didn't choose it; it chose me, being included with the 2014 Prius close-out car that I bought in November of that year. It was time to make way for the 2015 models. It was marked down. I bought it.
If I'm coming back from a new place with GPS on, I often forget to shut it off when I get into familiar territory. When I pull off my freeway and get in the left-hand lane to turn, I know it will protest.
Route recalculation. She speaks with such authority and disgust.
GPS always wants me to go straight through four more stoplights on an eight-lane road. To avoid the stoplights, I turn left and meander through the neighborhoods. The houses are about the same size as mine, I can see who's adding on or redoing their front yards, I can say hey to the care home my sister lived in for four and half years. No car in the driveway. That means Carlota is there today. She doesn't drive and has to be dropped off.
Today I went straight, and now I know why GPS says to go that way. Despite the four stoplights, the speed limit is higher. It's more direct with less meandering. But it's boring. There aren't any houses to look at, just bushes along a wrought-iron fence that encloses the country club. When I do get to houses, they are bigger than the one I have, which means no one is adding on. There aren't very many trees along the way. People have cut them down to make room for solar panels on their roofs. That's why I don't have solar. I love my trees.
So what, if I save three minutes? I don't know which houses are for sale in my neighborhood. I don't know who's holding an open house. I don't see any kids on bikes or old ladies walking their poodles or young men exercising their pit bull terriers. I can't see if the people on the corner have finished embellishing their tiny home with a new curbside mailbox, some fancy cursive house numbers and two new topiary bushes on either side of the garage doors. I can't see who has a new baby sign or birthday sign staked out in their front yard. I don't know if there's an event at the middle school or if the house on the corner has made any progress since a second story was framed up.
I don't know how much longer the last walnut orchard in my town will be there. Rumor has it that it's slated to become a hotel site when the owner finally passes away. Now I've heard it will be a development of houses.
The faster way is not worth it. The slower meandering way feels more direct because it's my community, whereas the other way is not. I don't live in a country club area.
Eight-lane roads have all kinds of traffic trouble. Just today a UC Davis car veered out in front of me as it turned left out of a side driveway, crossed four lanes and came into mine. I swerved out of the way. Who needs that? Not me.
GPS lady, you can be so bossy. I'll go the way I want to go, thank you very much.
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