GPS can kiss my...

If you recall, last week I mentioned my daughter's upcoming state tournament for Destination Imagination. Thankfully, that phase of 3rd grade is now done and over with (don't even get me started on how she cried that it was over and how much she wants to do it again next year...shit.) Saturday morning dawned sunny and beautiful as I packed my heathens into the car for the road trip. Another mom and I decided it would be a good idea to caravan up there together...so we meet up at a local gas station, get good and coffeed up (which would turn out to be a mistake of ginormous proportions) and head on our merry way.


Anyone who has ever had a child involved in ANY kind of tournament/competition etc knows that there are specific times involved. You can't just show up whenever you feel like it, things wouldn't run very smoothly if everyone slept in and showed up at noon. So like any other organized event, we KNEW we had to get there at a certain time. Now, both this mother and I had printed copies of directions that our friends at Mapquest had provided. We made the erroneous decision to eschew those directions in favor of relying on good ol' Mr. GPS, thinking he was more wise in the ways of directions than our friends at Mapquest. So we had left on time, made good time driving north and figured we had JUST enough time to reach our destination (well, not really...it got to the point where we knew we'd have to haul ass from the parking lot to get there on time but still...) Mr. GPS got us into the greater Baltimore area with no more wiggle room allowed in the we're-going-to-have-to-haul-ass-from-the-parking-lot schedule, but we made it....or so we thought.

You see, the address that had originally been given to us wasn't well liked by Mr. GPS. So in contacting the fine folks at our final destination, they gave us what they thought was a much more useful address...and wouldn't ya know it? Mr. GPS liked it! He guided us there happily...through random back streets and stopped us at too many red lights to even count (which continued chipping away at our hauling ass schedule) and we ended up in the middle of a random residential area behind a 7-11 (weird considering we were supposed to be on a COLLEGE CAMPUS) We were now down to about 5 minutes until our deadline and we had NO friggin clue where we were. So not only are we lost as all get-out, I was out of juice boxes and fruit snacks, my coffee had kicked in about 45 miles earlier and I had to pee, the kids had watched Cinderella three times, the youngest had thrown 4 pacifiers at my head and was crying about a dropped "me", the other two were arguing over whose turn it was to play the DS, and the other parents who were waiting on us were calling and texting like nobody's business wondering where the hell we were. Hell. We were in hell. I went mommy dearest on my kids and told them to stop talking to mom, stop talking to each other, and watch their damn movie (luckily they all complied...even the oldest who was trying not to cry once she realized she was going to miss the first part of her tournament) so I could figure out where the hell we were and how the hell to get us the hell out of whereever we were.

The other mom exited her car, walked over to mine and basically just shook her head as if to say "Where the F are we and what do we do now?" We were completely, hopelessly lost; our GPS' were completely useless...we may as well have had these mounted on our dashboards:

Then it hit me...I had google maps on my Blackberry! YAY! Mini portable Blackberry GPS to save the day...wrong again...Now we were heading in the complete opposite direction, had to ask a friggin highway crew for directions (which now that I think about it, they may have been convicts doing community service...maybe not the best idea) but either way, they told us we had to go BACK in the direction we had just come from. Holy shit. Other mom was dangerously close to tossing her husband's GPS onto the freeway, my Blackberry was clearly of no help, and I almost cried but I had to pee so bad I was afraid I'd cry something other than tears...that's all I'll say about that.

We followed the directions of our friendly neighborhood convicts and within 20 minutes we finally, finally, finally reached our stupid friggin damn destination. What should have taken us an hour and 45 minutes took us over FOUR FREAKING HOURS. That's right, FOUR HOURS. Our poor kids were trapped in the cars with us ranting and raving, texting and talking back and forth, venting our frustrations and road rage, one was carsick all the while knowing they were missing part of their day. GPS can kiss my ass. Seriously. It does not stand for Global Positioning System, because if it did, I was positioned in the 10th circle of hell last Saturday morning. Pretty sure satellite imagery doesn't reach down there. Nope, it stands for Guess your Position Sucka or maybe God Please ShutthisstupidpieceofcrapoffbecausenowI'mhopelesslylost, how about Gigantic crappy directional Piece of Shit?  Four freaking hours people. My GPS has given me some of the most f-d up convoluted directions yet I still keep turning it on. I don't know why, technology isn't all that great. Centuries ago explorers managed just fine with a compass; granted they ran into Florida and thought it was India, but whatever. I will never use my GPS again, GPS can kiss my ass. Seriously.