I just watched a car commercial on television. One of the selling points of the car was a feature that notified you in the event of a car accident. What a great idea. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve pulled into my driveway, gotten out of my car, and the guy next door said, “Howdy, neighbor, looks like you totaled your car on the way home from work. Is that your face imprint on the what’s left of the windshield? You may want to have a doctor reattach that missing appendage once you find it.”
What I need is a feature that warns me of things that are not quite as obvious to me, like “Good morning, Mr. Twede. Sensors indicate that you forgot to put your pants on.” Or “Good morning, Mr. Twede. Sensors indicate that you did a lame job of shaving this morning. You have stubble islands all over your face.”
Features on cars these days are really amazing. There are cars that will parallel park themselves, and cars that have cameras to help drivers back up without running over little Johnny’s toys (or little Johnny). There are cars that automatically adjust to road and weather conditions. There are stereos that adjust the volume of the music based on external noise(s).
Our demand for technological advances in automobiles clearly becomes more refined as we get older. As teenagers, when we start looking for our first car, the only feature we’re interested in is:
“Hi. I’m calling about the car you have for sale in the paper.”
“Yes, would you like to hear about all of the features?”
“Just one. Do the seats recline?”
“Yes, they do.”
“Sold!”
I’m still waiting for the first car company to come out with the one feature every guy has at the top of their wish list.
“It’s finally here. A car for men. All men. No fancy features like self-parking or accident notification. Real men don’t need that. Real men don’t want that. What do real men want? The capability to drive and take a leak at the same time. Introducing the Ford Reliever, with a patented urinal apparatus that engages automatically when your seat belt is fastened. No more pulling off to the side of the road and sprinting into the bushes. No more pulling into the nearest gas station and begging the cashier for the bathroom key, which for security purposes comes chained to a tire wheel. The Ford Reliever lets you take a whiz while keeping your hands at ten and two. Take a test leak at your nearby Ford Dealer.”
Warning-the writer is about to take you on a tangent.
Regarding gas station restrooms. Have you ever entered a gas station restroom that didn’t look like a colony of monkeys had just finished playing a rousing game of fling the excrement just minutes before you arrived? And you know that once you enter a gas station restroom, you’re not leaving without contracting a new strain of infectious disease that will bear your name immediately followed by “itis.”
In most store restrooms, there hangs a clipboard. The clipboard’s job is to document the maintenance activities of the restroom. Most clipboards have a sheet of paper with three columns printed on it. Column 1 reflects the date. Column 2 reflects the number of times that day some low-totem employee has to come in and clean the restroom. And Column 3 captures the initials of said low-totem employee. Gas station clipboards only have one column, which reflects the year.
End of tangent.
I am currently in the process of making one of the most difficult decisions of my life. A decision that will further define and shape me as a man. Should I or should I not buy a GPS navigation system?
In the limbic system of the brain, there is an area of the mid-brain called the Hippocampus, which governs a person’s navigational skills. Some people have a well-calibrated Hippocampus. It’s as if they have a built-in compass in their campus.
Tragically, some people are born without a hippocampus altogether and in its place is something called a Hippotrivialous, which is the ability to do well at trivia games.
I have an acute sense of direction. I rarely ever get lost, and when I do, I am usually able to find myself. Lady Debby has a cute sense of direction, meaning it’s kind of cute that she has no sense of direction. The other day we turned onto this street and she got this quizzical look on her face and she said, “This street looks familiar. And that house looks just like…”. Yep, that’s cute.
So the dilemma is-I view buying a GPS system as the equivalent of having to stop and ask for directions, which I rarely do. I must admit that my well-calibrated Hippocampus has a tendency to be a bit stubborn (I have no idea where he got it from).
No better example of this was when I went to Germany on a business trip a few years ago. The plan was once I finished with the business part of my trip, Lady Debby would fly into Dusseldorf and we would spend ten days traveling around Germany. While I was on the business part of my trip, I relied completely on my Hippocampus, and he got me royally lost. It got so bad that I actually had to consult a map. On the way back to the airport to pick up Lady Debby, I traded my current rental car in for one with a GPS System. I knew that wouldn’t go over well with my Hippocampus. Sure enough, I didn’t hear from him our entire vacation. But I can say with utmost certainty that if I had relied completely on my Hippocampus, we’d still be in Germany, two years later, still trying to find someone who could give us directions in English (my Hippocampus is not bi-lingual).
I’ve not done a lot of research for GPS systems, but I have yet to find a model with voice instructions tailored for the male ego. How can voice instructions tell a guy which way to turn, yet still make the guy feel like he already knows which direction to turn before being told to turn? Otherwise the whole trip will sound like this:
GPS system: “Turn left on Grove Street.”
Guy: “I knew that.” (Guy turns left.)
GPS system: “Take second exit and merge right.”
Guy: “Duh. Any moron could have figured that out.”
(Guy accidentally takes first exit.)
GPS system: “You took the wrong exit, you halfwit.”
Guy: “I did that on purpose. I know a shortcut.”
(GPS system rolls its non-existing eyes.)
For now, I have decided that although a GPS system would come in handy sometimes, for most driving excursions I can rely on my well-calibrated Hippocampus. This allows me to take that money and sock it away in savings for something that, as I get older, I will definitely get much more use out of. The Ford Reliever. American ingenuity combined with Europee’n comfort.
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Check out L. Dustin Twede’s website at www.ldustintwede.com. He can be reached at ddtwede@yahoo.com.
