SATURDAY MORNING WITH CRANKY DON JOE | The GPS Has Lost Confidence in Me

By Cranky Don Joe

My name is Cranky Don Joe. Cranky DJ to a lot of my neighbors.

I am not an expert. Which immediately makes me more qualified than half the people on television.

I have lived in Minnesota long enough to remember when people gave directions using landmarks instead of satellites. If you wanted to find somebody's house, nobody handed you a machine with a glowing map and a pleasant British accent. No, sir. They'd say something like, "Go past Johnson's old barn, turn left where the Dairy Queen used to be, and if you cross the railroad tracks, you've gone too far. If you reach the lake, you've gone way too far. If you see Harold sitting on his porch, stop and ask him because he's retired and enjoys telling people where they should have turned." Those directions weren't perfect, but at least they came from another human being.

Nowadays, we've turned over our entire transportation system to a little plastic rectangle that fits in a cup holder and somehow knows exactly where I am every minute of every day. Think about that. Forty years ago, my mother couldn't find me when I was standing in the backyard. Now a machine can tell me I'm approaching a roundabout before I've even noticed the road. Friends, that doesn't strike anybody else as a little unsettling?

Now don't misunderstand me. I appreciate technology. My microwave is a wonderful invention, my coffee maker and I have an excellent working relationship, and I have even learned how to stream television without accidentally purchasing a documentary about Icelandic sheep farming. Progress is a beautiful thing. But there is one modern invention that has slowly, methodically, and personally declared war on me: the Global Positioning System. People call it GPS. I call it an employee with an attitude problem.

It didn't start that way. Years ago, when I bought my first unit, I thought it was remarkable. I remember driving to my granddaughter's birthday party and hearing that calm voice say, "Turn right in one-half mile." I actually thanked it out loud. I thought, "What a polite little machine."

Then one afternoon, I missed a turn. Just one. The voice paused for a second and calmly replied, "Recalculating." Perfectly reasonable. Everybody deserves a second chance. Then I missed another turn. Again, "Recalculating." Still polite, still professional. Then road construction closed my designated exit. Again, "Recalculating." By the fourth time, something had changed. I can't explain it scientifically, and I don't have hard evidence, but I just know what I heard. The word didn't sound helpful anymore. It sounded deeply disappointed, like a high school guidance counselor who had really believed in my potential.

I mentioned this to Larry over coffee, which was my first mistake. Larry looked at me over his mug and laughed. "It's just a computer, Don." Friends, Larry has never trusted a weather forecast, believes every supermarket cashier is secretly judging his organic produce selection, and once insisted the self-checkout machine deliberately accused him of stealing bananas. But suddenly he's willing to defend the emotional capacity of artificial intelligence.

"Larry," I said, "I'm telling you that voice has changed." "It hasn't." "It has." "It's programmed, Don." "So is my thermostat, Larry, and even it doesn't sound this profoundly disappointed in me."

Larry shook his head and claimed you can't hear disappointment in a computer. He laughed again, then he said something I'll never truly forgive him for: "I think you're imagining it." Imagining it? Friends, I have been married. I know exactly what disappointment sounds like.

A few weeks later, I had to drive across the Twin Cities for an appointment I'd never made before. I entered the address, the map appeared, and the voice greeted me. Everything seemed perfectly normal: "Proceed to the highlighted route." See? Professional, courteous, optimistic. I pulled onto the highway, traffic was moving, the sun was shining, and life was good.

Then I accidentally stayed in the left lane one exit too long. That's all. One exit. The GPS paused. Not for very long, just long enough to let me know it was thinking. Then came those words: "Recalculating." Friends, that wasn't structural information. That was a heavy digital sigh. You know the sigh. Parents have it, teachers have it, mechanics have it, and spouses have absolutely perfected it. It's the sound people make when they've accepted that explaining things to you one more time probably isn't going to help.

I glanced down at the phone. "I heard that," I said. Nothing but the map. Then, a few seconds later, it commanded: "Make a legal U-turn." A legal U-turn? Young lady, I am on Interstate 94. The only legal U-turn available to me right now involves a helicopter.

Larry called my cell phone just then. Naturally. Larry has an uncanny ability to interrupt moments that are already becoming intensely complicated.

"Where are you?" he asked. "I'm trying to find my appointment." "Using GPS?" "Unfortunately." "Just follow what it says, Don." "Larry, it just told me to make a U-turn on the interstate." "It probably means at the next exit." "Then it should say that. I don't care what it secretly knows, Larry, I care what I know."

Larry chuckled and told me I was arguing with my phone. I told him I was correcting it. He claimed they don't have feelings, so I told him to explain the attitude, and he laughed so hard he hung up on me.

I wish that had been the end of the story, but that was only the beginning. Because once you begin noticing your GPS, you discover something extraordinary: it never admits that it made a mistake. Not once. If it sends you through a residential neighborhood where every single street dead-ends into another street with the exact same name, it is somehow your fault. If it routes you behind three industrial warehouses, across a bumpy railroad crossing, around a recycling center, and past what appears to be an abandoned alpaca farm, your fault. If the city completely closed the road six months ago and nobody bothered to update the satellite map, still somehow your fault. The GPS never apologizes. It simply recalculates, and every time it does, it sounds just a little less convinced that you're going to make it to your destination alive.

By the time I reached the next exit, I had begun to suspect something that, frankly, should concern every driver in America. The GPS wasn't simply giving directions anymore; it was actively evaluating my life choices. It started innocently enough: "Continue for three miles." Fine. I can continue for three miles. I've successfully continued living for seventy-three years. Then, "Keep left." I kept left. "Merge right." I merged right. "In 500 feet, use the second lane from the left."

Friends, I don't know who designed modern highway interchanges, but somewhere along the way we decided driving should closely resemble advanced college algebra. There are now highways with five lanes, six exits, two flyovers, one collector road, a frontage road, and a lane that appears to exist solely to punish people who looked away to check their mirrors for three seconds. By the time you've figured out which lane you're supposed to be in, you're already passing the exit you needed. The GPS calmly says, "Exit now." Now? Young lady, if I exit now, I'm going through a reinforced steel guardrail.

I missed it, naturally. There was that familiar pause. Not a long pause, just long enough to remind me that disappointment doesn't have to be loud to hurt. Then came the words: "Recalculating." I slapped the steering wheel and snapped, "Oh, don't you start with me." The woman in the next car looked over at me. I smiled politely, and she smiled back in the careful, distant way people smile when they're deciding whether you're harmless or should be reported to the state authorities.

A few minutes later the GPS announced, "You are on the fastest route." Friends, that sounded less like mathematical information and more like patronizing encouragement. Like it was trying to boost my fragile confidence after watching me miss two consecutive exits and almost merge into a delivery truck. I didn't appreciate the sympathy; I wanted professional respect.

I finally arrived near my destination. Notice I said near. The GPS cheerfully announced, "You have arrived." No, I haven't. I'm in a sprawling commercial parking lot. There are six separate buildings, eight entrances, three identical signs, a fountain, and a modern sculpture that looks like somebody welded lawn furniture together. If this qualifies as arriving, then camping in the driveway counts as sleeping indoors.

The office I needed was Suite 214. The building directly in front of me had Suites 101 through 118. I drove to the next building, which had 201 through 208. The next one had 301 through 326. Friends, I have never seen numbering like this outside an official government tax form. I circled the complex twice, and the GPS remained completely silent. Apparently, once it announces you've arrived, it considers the legal relationship complete. Finding the actual door is now viewed as a personal growth opportunity.

I finally parked beside a gentleman walking a golden retriever. "Excuse me," I asked. "Do you know where Suite 214 is?" He pointed directly behind me. "Other building, hidden behind the main one." Of course it was. The GPS had guided me to within fifty feet of my destination and then emotionally checked out of the vehicle.

When I got home that afternoon, Larry was sitting on my front porch drinking my iced tea. He had that specific smile, the one people wear when they already know they're about to enjoy themselves at your expense.

"How'd your appointment go?" he asked. "Fine." "GPS get you there?" "Eventually." "I've never had a single problem with mine," Larry bragged. "Larry, your GPS once sent you to Rochester when you were trying to get to Roseville." "That wasn't the machine's fault, Don. I accidentally typed the wrong city name." "So the machine blindly trusted you?" "Yes." "Well, that was its first major mistake."

Larry laughed, then said, "You know what your real problem is? You don't trust the technology." I told him I trusted it right up until it developed personal opinions, and he folded his newspaper, leaned back, and dared me to prove it.

The next morning we drove to the hardware store, not because I actually needed anything, but because every respectable neighborhood argument deserves rigorous field research. I handed Larry my phone and told him to operate the controls. He entered the destination, and the GPS immediately announced, "Proceed to the highlighted route." Larry smiled and said, "See? Perfectly normal."

We pulled away from the curb, traffic was light, and the weather was beautiful. Then Larry, who has never met a shortcut he didn't immediately regret, said, "You know, I think I know a faster way through the back streets." Friends, never follow a man who begins a sentence with, "I think I know a faster way." That is exactly how people end up on true-crime documentaries.

Instead of following the highlighted route, Larry directed me through three residential neighborhoods, one industrial park, two construction zones, and a private parking lot behind a bowling alley. After about ten minutes of this chaos, the GPS spoke again: "Proceed to the highlighted route." Larry ignored it. Two minutes later, it said, "Make the next legal U-turn." Larry ignored that too. Three minutes later, absolute silence. Not a word, nothing.

Larry grinned and said, "I think we successfully confused it." "No, Larry," I said. "I think we genuinely hurt its feelings."

Then, after what felt like an eternity of digital freezing, the GPS quietly whispered, "Proceed to the highlighted route." Friends, I have heard that exact tone before. It was the same worn-out voice my fifth-grade teacher used after explaining long division for the seventh time to the back row. Not angry, not frustrated, just profoundly tired of our collective existence. I looked at Larry. "Larry," I said, "I don't think it believes in us anymore." He burst into loud laughter, but I didn't, because deep down inside, I wasn't entirely joking.

The real showdown happened two Saturdays later. My wife had asked me to pick up a birthday cake for our granddaughter. Simple errand: drive to the bakery, pick up the cake, and drive straight home. I have successfully completed far more complicated assignments in my life. I've assembled children's bicycles with instructions translated poorly from four different languages, I've survived holiday shopping at Costco on a Sunday afternoon, and I've even attended a three-hour church committee meeting about fellowship pancakes. A local bakery should have been easy.

The address was new, so against my better judgment, I tapped the little blue arrow. The GPS immediately sprang to life: "Proceed to the highlighted route." There it was again, that pleasant voice, that confidence, that quiet optimism that still believed I could successfully locate a building with a clearly marked storefront. Poor thing.

Five minutes into the drive, it directed me onto a road I had never traveled. Ten minutes later, I was driving through a suburban neighborhood where every single street appeared to have been named during the exact same uninspired committee meeting: Oak Ridge Lane, Oak Ridge Court, Oak Ridge Circle, Oak Ridge Terrace, and Oak Ridge Place. Friends, if you need six different streets with the same name, you've stopped naming streets and started recycling text.

The GPS calmly instructed, "Turn right." I turned right. "Turn left." I turned left. "Continue straight." I continued straight. Then, without a single word of warning, it proudly announced, "You have arrived."

I looked around. Friends, I had arrived at a heavily fenced electrical utility substation. High-voltage transformers, massive power lines, a barbed-wire chain-link fence, and one lonely city maintenance truck. Unless my granddaughter had suddenly developed a sophisticated taste for municipal electrical infrastructure, I was fairly certain this was not the bakery. I looked at the screen, and the little blue dot was sitting confidently right on top of the substation transformer. The GPS had absolutely zero doubts about its choices. I stared at it, and it stared back with complete electronic indifference.

"You can't possibly be serious," I told the dashboard. Silence. "You think birthday cakes come from the electric company?" Nothing.

I zoomed out on the digital map and realized the actual bakery was on the very next block. The GPS had stopped exactly one massive building early. Friends, if I miss a turn by one building, everyone in my family tells me I need to pay closer attention to reality. When the GPS misses by an entire block, somehow I'm expected to be grateful. I drove another thirty seconds, and there was the bakery, exactly where common sense said it should be.

I parked the car, and as I climbed out, another gentleman was doing exactly the same thing from his truck. He smiled wearily and asked, "GPS?" I nodded. "It took me to the substation too," he admitted.

Friends, it had happened before. This wasn't a glitch; this was an organized pattern. We walked into the bakery together like survivors of the same natural disaster. The young woman behind the counter looked at us and smiled instantly. "GPS sent you next door to the transformers?" "How did you know?" "You're the fourth person today," she laughed.

The fourth. Ladies and gentlemen, somewhere inside that satellite network is a tiny digital employee who wakes up every morning and says, "You know what would be hilarious today? Let's send everyone trying to buy frosting to the power company."

When I got back to the car, the GPS cheerfully announced, "Continue to your destination." "I've already been to my destination," I snapped. Silence. "I have the cake in my hands." Silence. "I don't need your directions anymore." Nothing. No apology, no structural acknowledgment, and no accountability whatsoever. It simply displayed the fastest route home as if nothing unusual had transpired.

That's another thing I've noticed about the GPS: it never celebrates. It doesn't say, "Congratulations, you found it!" It doesn't say, "Nice recovery after that unfortunate misunderstanding involving the high-voltage electrical substation." Nothing. Just another cold command: "Head south." Friends, after everything we'd been through together on that road, the least it could've done was admit we'd both learned something.

On the drive home, I turned the voice completely off. I figured we'd both benefit from a little emotional space. The silence in the cabin was wonderful: no instructions, no recalculating, and no subtle vocal disappointment. Just me, the open road, and the occasional highway billboard reminding me to call an attorney I'd never met. I made it all the way back to my driveway without hearing a single electronic word.

I carried the birthday cake inside the house. My grandson saw me and asked, "Did the GPS behave today, Grandpa?" I looked at him and said, "It took me to an electrical power substation." He laughed so hard he nearly dropped his entire glass of milk onto the rug. "You should really stop using it, Grandpa."

I thought about that statement for a long moment. "I probably won't," I admitted. "Why not?"

Because the truth is, despite all my complaining, that little machine has gotten me safely to hundreds of places I would have never found on my own. Has it confused me? Certainly. Has it occasionally taken me on strange routes that appeared to have been designed by somebody holding the map upside down? Without question. Has it tested my absolute patience? Repeatedly. But if I'm being completely fair, most of the time it quietly gets me exactly where I need to go.

The problem is that I only remember the rare times it didn't. Maybe that's true about more than just a GPS. Maybe that's true about human beings. We passionately remember the wrong turn, the missed exit, the temporary misunderstanding, and the one conversation that went terribly badly. We don't always remember the hundreds of ordinary, quiet moments when someone helped us find our way through the world without ever asking for recognition.

So I've decided to make official peace with my GPS. I'll keep listening, and it'll keep recalculating. Every now and then it'll send me somewhere I never intended to go, and every now and then I'll ignore perfectly good advice because I'm entirely convinced I know better. If we're being completely honest, that has been the exact story of human beings long before satellites were ever invented.

Still, the next time it says, "Recalculating," I'm going to answer back through the steering wheel: "Take your time. Neither one of us has figured everything out just yet."

Until next time,

Cranky DJ

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