GPS

Let me tell you something: GPS travel is the most screwed up thing ever.

You have two choices: fastest or shortest, each with their own cross to bear. You either go 30 miles out of your way to take all major interstates, or take every ridiculous back road possible to your destination.

YOU JUST CANNOT WIN.

These damn devices scream out orders to brain-dead Americans who couldn't tell you what direction is north from south on a map (like myself). "TURN LEFT IN 2.0 MILES" becomes the only reverberation in your car as your music can't seem to cancel out the cranky voice that booms out of the box mounted to your dash. And you can't forget the dreaded "RECALCULATING" when you screw up its mandates to you.

I took my GPS to Marinette, WI today. A trip that should have taken me circa two and a half hours turned into a four hour ordeal. "Shortest distance" involved going through a populated Iola, WI where the local car show featuring thousands of car enthusiasts was going on, as well as taking every road possible to stay away from any form of civilization or state road that might actually have another car on it at the same time as mine.

Road construction through Oconto also created a problem, seeing as the entire road was completely torn to shit, and I had to retrace a good fifteen miles to get back onto a road that would take me an additional 20 miles out of my way.

And my damn box just kept shouting at me, ordering me around. I can just feel my blood pressure rise as that box gets incrementally louder as you screw up and disobey orders more and more.

AND TO TOP IT OFF, the technology continues to get more advanced, and therefore more "helpful," adding features like Speed Warning, which analyzes what roads you are driving on and alerts you with a trumpet making a noise similar to those heard at horse derbies.

We pay a box to scream orders at us. What a society.