Charmin' Garmin
Tuesday, April 28, 2009 at 11:44PM 
On Monday morning I was tooling down the road toward Manning, South Carolina, which is a little less than one hundred miles from my home. The deposition was set to begin at ten o'clock. It was a beautiful day and since I had plenty of time to reach my destination, I stopped at one of our lovely roadside rest areas to stretch my legs and freshen up.
As I exited the ladies room and headed for my car, I saw a female employee of the Palmetto State polishing one of the glass doors leading to the parking lot. She looked up and caught my eye, so naturally I give her a big smile and said "Good morning!"
Got GPS?
She sort of smiled back but instead of returning my greeting, she waved her cleaning rag and told me I was going the wrong way.
Huh?
I looked through the sparkling door. Grass. Trees. Picnic tables. Trash barrels. A person walking a dog.
No cars.
A concrete picnic table wouldn't get me to Manning; I knew that right off. I've never learned to drive one. And I figured the dog probably wasn't fast enough.
I laughed when I realized -- pretty quickly, I am happy to report -- that I'd turned the wrong way out of the ladies room door. I thanked the nice worker for pointing out my error, did a one-eighty, and there was my car sitting right where I had left it.
What a relief! I'm fairly ditzy and consequently do not take serendipitous outcomes lightly.
I was a couple of feet out into the sunshine when a man in front of me on the sidewalk turned around and grinned real big.
"Get confused comin' outta there, didja?" He asked in a friendly way.
"Yeah, story of my life," I admitted. "If there's a hard way to do a thing, I'll find it."
"You got GPS?" he wanted to know.
To find my way back to my car from the ladies room? Uhm, no.
I told him I was usually the last woman in the Western Hemisphere to acquire new technology, and that I still relied on MapQuest to get me where I needed to go in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and even points beyond.
Assume nothing.
He gestured in the direction of his vehicle, which turned out to be a white van. "I deliver caskets, and I couldn't do it without my GPS," he assured me.
I glanced at the van and could see through the back windows that there were indeed a couple of caskets nestled cozily there.
"I got mine at the pawn shop," he said.
I assumed he meant his GPS and not a casket, but I figured I'd best make sure. "A Garmin?" I asked him. (Even I know Garmin makes GPS's and not coffins.)
"Yeah, a Garmin," he said. "My daughter-in-law stole a bunch of our stuff and pawned it awhile ago, and when I went to get some of it back, the GPS caught my eye. Best hundred fifty dollars I ever spent. You should tell your husband to get you one."
Duly noted. Next time TG and I visit a hock shop (which will be the first time), I'll check out the GPS units. I may even ask if they happen to have a casket, because in this "terrible" economy and pigs flying (swine flew!) all over the place distributing potentially deadly cooties, you never know when you might need a bargain-basement deal on a coffin.
I located Manning without incident and without a GPS, by the way ... found it sleepy and charming as ever, "Matchless for Beauty and Hospitality" ... right where it's been since 1856.
And while "Assume Nothing" is my sometime-mantra, I assume the caskets were delivered right on schedule as well. Wherever they ended up, I hope they sit empty for a long, long time.
Reader Comments (8)
We have a GPS and it can come in handy sometimes. It did lead us astray by about 2 hours on a trip last year though!
GPS was invented for directionally-challenged individuals like me, but alas I have yet to purchase one. Someday, though. Someday.
@ Mari ... see, I get turned around enough on my own, without the aid of a "helpful" electronic device! If I got one of those I'd be like the president with his teleprompter ... no telling where I'd end up. :-}
@ Kev ... I'd need a GPS to find a hock shop!
I am seriously directionally challenged, so my son got me one for Christmas. Unfortunately, I can't resist "messing with its head" in the form of setting it for a destination, then turning the opposite way it tells me to or continuing on straight, just to see what it will say now... and actually talking back to it. I hope when I really need it, it isn't in Revenge mode. As for the casket, I figure I'll just donate everything and then I won't need one. Except I really don't want my bod to be used for "medical research and teaching" that's just too weird.
@ Tracie ... "revenge mode" ... LOLOLOLOL! If I got a Garmin, I'd probably end up with the HAL computer version! As to donating ... ugh ... sorry, but I can't bring myself to sign the back of my license. I hope I'm not making a mistake. I'll likely need a coffin someday, but not for long b/c the Lord is going to come in a cloud and bring me on up out of there in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye!
Never used a GPS, but after reading this, if I need to find a casket, I know what to use to do it ;-)
I was in Disneyland recently and we decided to drive to Malibu to see Josh Groban's house with the use of a GPS(first time). It took over 4 hours because the GPS had to keep "recalculating" but we had a laughing good time and getting back to Disneyland took only 1 and a half hours!
@ SF ... we won't make you find your own casket ... not that you'll have need of one for a long time! You just keep writing funny stuff and let someone else worry about the whereabouts of your coffin, LOL!
@ Barbara ... my daughter Erica will snort coffee out her nose when I tell you her you ALMOST found Josh Groban's house! Wait ... I just read your comment again ... DID you find Josh's house? We read all about it in a magazine and saw pictures! If you saw it -- or him! -- that must have been a very cool experience.