I've had to make a few changes aboard my truck. Well, only one really, my GPS, she's gone too far.
It's been coming for a while now but I guess I was putting it off. You know how it is, you get into a relationship, know it's going bad but you just don't know how to end it. You stew about it, procrastinate as the tension grows and then suddenly BAM! You're in the middle of a crisis you knew was coming but were totally unprepared for.
You probably noticed I call her 'she'. What else would I call her? She has a woman's voice, British. Oh sure, she sounded ever so polite and kind at first, kind of like Mary Poppins! Dutiful like there was nothing I could ask of her that she wouldn't do for me. If I asked her to take me some place she was only too happy to oblige. Life on the road was going to be easy, I thought. She was infallible!
But familiarity breeds contempt, as they say, and soon little things began happening. "Recalculating," she would say if I didn't follow her directions exactly. "Recalculating." At first I took that to mean that she was acquiescing to my wishes, her acknowledgement of my superior status aboard the truck. "Recalculating."
Then I noticed she seemed to be saying it with more of an edge, giving subtle voice to her disdain for my directional decisions. "Recalculating." At first I panicked whenever she said it, thinking I had gone wrong, made some fatal mistake. Then I found myself wincing every time she said it. I'd try to hide my deviation from her route (note I call it 'her route'. I mean, come on, she's a machine!). Try as I might, she caught me every time I turned away from 'her' route. "Recalculating," she said and I swear I heard her sigh as she said it.
Then other things started happening. She started taking me the wrong way. Not the wrong way really, but not the right way either. I think it was her way of showing her independence. I remember I needed to get to a plant where I was due to deliver a load. She took me to within sight of the place but then told me to turn into a veteran's hospital to get there. Getting out of that place took about ten minutes of backing and filling. Once we got there she said 'turn right' when I could plainly see that we were supposed to turn left. I turned left.
"Recalculating." Her response was icy, cold. I felt like I had Princess Diana in the truck and she was having a royal snit.
It got to the point where I stopped talking to her. It was clear I was not going to change her thinking. No matter how I reasoned with her she was unrelenting in her opinions and if I dared to cross her, the only response was her haughty and superior 'recalculating.' Oh, how I grew to hate that word!
We finally came to an impasse, literally. She had me on a back road into a little town in Illinois not far from where I am now. We'd been on this narrow back road for what seemed like an awfully long time. We went through villages, over narrow bridges, around blind curves, up and down hills and now as we were approaching the destination I came around a curve and face to face with a low bridge. My truck and trailer are 13 feet 6 inches tall, she knows that! The bridge was not quite two lanes wide and only 10 feet 6 inches tall. I had to slam on the brakes before I rammed the roof of my truck into it! I sat in silence, collecting myself. "You knew this bridge was here, didn't you?"
"Yes," she said in a neutral voice.
"Why didn't you tell me? Why did you bring me this way?"
"What difference does it make? You don't listen to me anyway."
"If I didn't listen to you," I said, "we wouldn't be here right now! How am I going to get out of here?"
There was a long silence, then, "recalculating."
Then there was another voice from deep within me. It said, "Hey, you're talking to your GPS. Doesn't that strike you as being a little odd?"
"What's odd," I responded, "is that she's answering."
"Time to make change," the voice said to me. "You're talking to me, too."
So I have made a change. While she was, uh - 'asleep' - I disconnected her voice. I replaced it with a man's voice, a guy who sounds like he knows where he's going, a guy who isn't going to give me a bum steer. Just this evening I plugged in a request for new directions to my destination for tomorrow.
"Thanks," he said with flat calmness. "I'll see what I can do. I'm sure I can find this location. I'll get right on it."
Okay, I'm already nervous.
John Egan, writer, photographer, businessman, teacher, school bus and Over the Road truck driver, sees himself as a traveler, not merely over highways, but through life. Author of screenplays and several books including a novel he's writing about the truck driving from one man's perspective, Egan gives his unique slant on a variety of topics from truck driving to politics, often with a twist of humor and a clear insight that sheds new light on familiar topics. "Traveler" his trucking handle, describes Egan perfectly.
Egan writes of his experiences over the road on his blog, "A Road Like a River" http://www.road-traveler.blogspot.com and picks opportunities to give an opinion or two along the way.
Born in Ohio, Egan has lived in the southwest for over forty years (as he says, "I was born in Ohio but I grew up in New Mexico, Egan lives in southern Colorado with his wife and son.
Join him for the ride. It's more than just a trucker's log, it's a journey of the soul, a journey down the road, the road like a river.
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