GPS is of the Devil. It's true. Just ask my daughter.

We were given a free GPS for my van.  When I learned of the location for one of my children's Saturday soccer matches, I decided that I'd take the GPS unit.

Just in case.

I'd been there before and it was a LONG way out there.  I'm really good with direction and can find my way home most all of the time, but this was just to be on the safe side.  A back up, if you will.

Before leaving home, I checked with my daughter.  Cleats?  Check.  Shin guards? Check.  300 bottles of water, albuterol, arnica cream, extra socks, flip flops, snack, book to read on the way?  Check, check, check.  I loaded the double jogger into the van, grabbed the tons of kids that kept escaping, the backpack of snacks and the cooler of water bottles and hopped into the driver's seat.  I programmed the GPS and we drove away.  TIme estimate - 40 minutes.  Good job, Mom.  We'd arrive ten minutes ahead of when my daughter needed to be there. 

There are three ways for me to access the interstate by my house, and one of them was the furthest away, but the actual direction I needed to go, as opposed to taking the closer entrances and then circling around.  Plus, I'm uh, stubborn, and I WANTED to go my way. 

So I ignored the GPS right off the bat.  Me so smart.  The female voice on the unit waited a minute, realized I didn't make my turn, and patiently said, "Recalculating."  I drove on to the next main road and continued forward, instead of turning right as she'd directed.  Again, a pause, a voice prompt of "Redirecting", and a new route.

And then I looked up to see that the new estimate of time stated that I'd be there an hour after the game STARTED, not thirty minutes before.  Apparently, the voice was pretty pissed at me.  "Go a different way than I say?  I'll show you!"

My daughter FREAKED out.  Despite my reassurances to the contrary, she fussed the entire drive.  "When will we be there? Why will we be late?  I don't want to be late!  I want to start, and I won't start if we are late!" 

We showed up at the game right on time - stupid GPS - and my daughter FLEW out.  She ran to the field, where another team was playing in the same jersey color that she was wearing.  "Mom!  You should have followed the GPS!  I'm late!  And I have on the wrong shirt!"

She finally calmed down when she saw her teammates, in the correct shirt, on the side.  She still hasn't forgiven the GPS - which we discovered today was correct in the time period allowed, but not calculate to our time zone - hence the extra hour of time it supposedly would take us to get there.

_______________________

Tournaments are OVAH.  One daughter's team came in second, one came in fourth.  Good showings by all.  It was a LONG weekend.  I'm tired. 

What did you do?

Comments

[maria]

we did SOCCER!

[Backpacking Dad]

The List.

And a birthday party for one of Erin's baby friends. There was a moon bounce. On their tennis court. Down the hill from their awesome California Arts & Crafts home.

I'm just a little bit envious right now.

[Dana]

I think I'd love and hate a GPS device all at the same time. I secretly love the adventure in getting lost, and still don't think we should be relying on electronics so much that they tell us where to go (then again I don't have a car full of others to get around on a time crunch!)

Glad the games are over, maybe your schedule can get back to normal for awhile? What's next on your plate?

I caught up with some friends from home and went on a great long bike ride, milking up the good weather while it's here!

[Brandy]

We had the out-laws over for dinner. Fun! NOT! I would like a GPS, I can get lost going across town. *G* Glad you made it to your Daughters game.

[Kelley]

Ready stuff like that makes me squeal a little more in delight that my kids gave up soccer... ahhhhh my Saturdays are MINE! To do washing and cooking and cleaning.... sigh...

[Katie]

One sleepover with 11 ten year old boys and the next night another sleepover with 8 nine year old girls. Also one soccer game on Saturday (5 minutes away so no GPS sagas) and a 5 hour campfire cooking event with 10 Girl Scouts on Sunday. I really should still be asleep.

[Paige]

My daughter's team lost both soccer games on Friday and Saturday, and are now out of the tournament. It was such a sad loss, as the other team were rough and mean, and three of our girls ended up injured on the sidelines (punches to the face, kicks to the foot when the ball wasn't even close, etc). So even though I'm glad that soccer is over (and we can move on to softball), I'm sad for them that it ended so badly.

I had bell concerts on Friday and Saturday nights, so it was an exhausting and extremely busy weekend.

[Ashlee]

Oh man, long weekend here too: my son's third birthday party was Saturday (lots of family, friends, and a couple of breakdowns by the birthday boy - overstimulated much?). Sunday was a ten mile run that kicked my butt, church, and then small group where we brewed a batch of beer for our trip together this summer.

Lots of fun things that made for a very busy weekend!

[Emily C]

GPS is great, until it tells you to TURN LEFT INTO A BODY OF WATER. Or if you put in the wrong address. (I live in the land of 1000 East and 9600 North-don't mix your directions or you're screwed)

[ellen]

I bet you were using a Mio gps unit...no matter what time zone we are in, it is ALWAYS off by an hour! Needless to say, our second unit was a Garmin:)