We were driving through Dallas. As we were within a mile of our destination, (an outlet mall – women were involved) all of our GPSs said to keep left to get off the freeway. 

Then I saw Beth practically take a hard right to take the off-ramp on the other side of the freeway. At the top of the ramp was a sign that said to turn left there for our goal. 

I tried to not worry as Gerty, my nickname for the Garmin GPS, would just recalculate the path and get me where I needed to be. 

I soon realized that Gerty hadn’t figured out where I was. Gerty thought that I’d made it to the service road that ran parallel to the freeway that I was on and was telling me to turn left onto roads that I was driving under. 

I took one of the off-ramps and hoped that Gerty’s instructions would start making sense. 

They almost did. Gerty started telling me to turn onto streets that were 2 streets away. By the time that I realized the mistake, I was on another wrong road. I was tired and getting lost and getting further away from where I wanted to be and feeling every one of the 1100 miles that I was away from home. I was feeling pretty close to the edge. 

What pushed me over the edge was getting a phone call while trying to deal with this and a stick shift transmission. I told Pam about the <naughty word> GPS sending me off the wrong <naughty word> exit and sending me down the wrong <naughty word> streets. <naughty word>! <naughty word>! <naughty word>!

That’s when I realized that I’d somehow pushed the FaceTime button and Beth and the grandkids had heard my tirade. 

<naughty word>