Who Needs a GPS Anyway?

On the way home from California yesterday, we sat at the Costco in Reno discussing lunch. SOMEONE in the backseat piped up and requested Subway. Grandpa J stated he didn't know where any were.

I, with my trusty new phone, whipped it out and said, "I can find one!" So, I checked out Google Maps and found about seven or eight or so in the Reno/Sparks area. Not knowing the area at all, I asked Grandpa J to take a look and figure out which Subway was closest to where we were. He took one look at it and then SCREWED it all up with his big fingers. Maps zoomed in and out and addresses appeared and disappeared, and then he gave it back saying my phone was too little to read. Well, buddy, open your eyes! So, I pouted a bit and just sat there. I put my cool new phone away.

ANOTHER someone in the backseat piped up and said, "Why don't you check out the GPS?" So, Grandpa J started pushing buttons. By this time, he was pushing not only the GPS buttons, but mine also. Well, he'd been pushing assorted buttons on his GPS all the way to Reno anyway and kept messing it up. He had it on phone connection. Which, by the way, keeps popping up some annoying message every 3 seconds saying there is no phone connection. Duh. . .we're in the car. We're not on the phone. Well, he got all confused as to what category he should look up Subway. So, I gently took the GPS and found, AGAIN, several Subways in the area–two or three within 1.2 or 1.3 miles from where we were at Costco. Do you think we could go to one of them? Heaven's NO. That was BACKTRACKING! Got to find one on the way.

I gently suggested one about 2 miles ahead. So, Grandpa J followed the GPS. We got off the freeway and the GPS said there was a Subway on the left. Hmmm. . . no Subway in sight. Grandpa J wandered around, made an illegal U-turn, and drove in and out of parking lots and started to get frustrated. Any wife of almost 35 years knows all about those signals a frustrated husband gives off when highly stressed.

I gently suggested another Subway. We got off the freeway as the GPS suggested. The Subway was only 2 minutes away. That seemed reasonable to me, but NO, the GPS didn't know anything and was taking us off in a direction Grandpa J didn't want to go. He made sure we all knew that this GPS didn't know anything! Another illegal U-turn and we were back on the freeway. Grandpa J said he could find a Subway better than that "blankety-blank" GPS could!

By this time, everybody was in the game. The backseat kept suggesting that Wendy's or Jack-in-the-Box or Taco Bell would do. NO WAY! I wanted a Subway. I got all in the mood for Subway, so just because Grandpa was so darned stubborn, I was going to have a SUBWAY! And, Subway it was going to be or ELSE! More than once, I stuck my tongue out at Grandpa J.

Needless to say, Grandpa J wandered on and off the freeway, down different roads and couldn't find a Subway. I got my handy, dandy trusty phone out AGAIN to check to see if we had run out of Subways by now. There were still a couple left. I zoomed in on one, but since I was deprived of my homing pigeon skills from the day I was born, (I can get lost in Walmart) SOMEONE in the back seat volunteered to figure out what direction we were going. THEN, after all that time had passed, and what had to have been an hour later, we FINALLY found a Subway! And once again, we continue to live HAPPILY EVER AFTER!


P.S. In all fairness, you should know Grandpa J has his own version of this story. I volunteered to share it with you, but he respectfully declined. You see, secretly I think he knows when to drop it.