Personal News

My GPS has made me stupider.

Admittedly, I’ve always been directionally challenged, which made my early years as a Realtor very stressful. In the course of showing property, I am always going places I’ve never gone before. I used to plan showings using an atlas dotted with sticky note shreds. A tedious way to plot my path from one house to the next, but it worked. The advent of Yahoo Maps was a huge improvement. Then came the GPS.

“Cookie” was a Christmas gift three years ago. (She’s a smart cookie!) Having some robotic someone along to navigate was a huge Quality of Life improvement. I could drive with confidence, trusting Cookie to get me where I needed to go and back again. Then a few months ago Cookie started acting up; she became unreliable. When I tapped the touch-screen HERE, she would respond as if I had tapped it THERE. Entering a destination became problematic.

This past weekend I had relocation clients from Texas. We saw 18 houses in two days — and Cookie became totally impossible to work with. For the first time in three years I was on my own, and it wasn’t pretty. I had a hard time finding my own office! How embarrassing is that?

Admittedly, I changed offices at Christmas — four months ago. But I’d always had Cookie to rely on before. This will make sense to you only if you know Cary and its loopy streets, but anyway I was on Harrison, and needed to go to Kildare Farm. Simple enough. But I missed the turn on Cary Parkway and took Maynard instead, which would have been okay but I went the wrong way on Maynard and had to do a U-turn and go back. Then I drove right past my office — because I was looking on the right and it was on the left. Again I had to do a U-turn and go back.

I have become so accustomed to having a cheerful voice instruct me, literally at every turn. “In point-three of a mile,” Cookie would say, “turn left.” And then “Arriving at destination, on right.” I’m lost without her! I mean, really LOST.

So I’ve made a resolution. To pay more attention to where I’m going? No, of course not. I’ve made a resolution to get a new GPS.

Sorry, Cookie. It’s time to move on — in the right direction.