MKNonline Blog

So I took a short overnight trip up to Boston to visit friends who I haven’t seen in quite a while, but ended up having to cut my trip even shorter due to an unfortunate series of mishaps that nearly sent me to the grave. The culprit? Technology.

Michael Scott is right in so many ways when he blames technology for leading humans astray.

The story…It was a quiet morning in the BU campus where I had quickly stopped to see some friends who were crazy enough (i.e. sober enough) to grab a quick breakfast before I headed off to Central Square for a now ritualistic hip hop class and brunch combo with Leslie and the CS friends. Now, I’ve done the drive from BU to Central Square a handful of times, and it’s not exactly rocket science to get there, but with construction going on throughout the city streets, I figured I’d type in the address in my GPS to be safe.

Mistake 1: I followed the GPS.

Now, no one will ever know why my GPS decided to lead me astray today. Maybe it finally stood up against my constant neediness for faster, better directions. Maybe its old age finally caught up with it. Maybe I simply entered in the address wrong. But my generally unreliable GPS unit today decided to play a fun game of leading me out of Boston into parts unknown. Clearly, I knew something was wrong the second I drove into the interstate on-ramp, but as any GPS owner knows, once you’re lost, the GPS is all you got.

My GPS took my blind loyalty and trust so well, it “blue screen of death” on me out in the middle of Concord, MA, or so I think. Now I’m lost, and I’m late to hip hop.

Mistake 2: I didn’t charge my phone.

Now I love my Helio phone. It’s cool, it’s unique, no one else has it, but with that comes many a problems, the least of which is a lack of a car charger readily available at local electronic stores. With Leslie my only navigator and my inability to follow any of her simple directions, my phone decided to join GPS in its fun little game and just die.

For those keeping score, I’m now stranded in a TJ Maxx plaza somewhere close to Alewife but not quite sure where with no GPS and no phone with GPS.

Leslie, Angel of All Angels, saved me 45 minutes later by finding me alone, confused, dirty, and devastated by my electronic betrayal in front of TJ Maxxx. Homeless kids in Uganda got nothing on how pathetic I looked.

Oh, but technology was not done messing with my day. I’m going to skip the additional getting lost to brunch and the massive failure that was parking in Boston, but we finally find a metered after much turbulence. The meter decided to only exchange quarters to minutes for 1 hour and 45 minutes. Those last 15 minutes cost us 2 dollars in eaten quarters before we just gave up.

Brunch goes off with no major occurrences, but boy did my GPS hate me today. Because back at my car, the deceased corpse of my GPS device magically smashed through my driver’s side window and ran away with a group of hoodlums.

So my Boston day ends tragically earlier than expected, with the shattered glass all over my car and a giant rock sitting on my passenger seat with that “You suck at life” look to it. I liken the shattered glass to my day today.

So a police report, insurance claim, multiple vacuums later (one vacuum ran out of batteries and died while I was vacuuming to top that cake with delicious ironic icing), and a very breezy 2 hour drive home, and I’m exhausted. We’ll forget this trip ever happened and do it over when I can get my robots under control. Hopefully, my next GPS will be a kinder and more merciful sentient being. And I will learn to not so heavily rely on technology to keep me alive.