On our Memorial Day trip to Arizona, I decided to splurge and get the GPS in our rental car. Good idea, right? Having GPS guarantees that you won’t get lost, right?
Wrong.
Our relationship with Vicky (the name given to the GPS unit by our Enterprise rep) began on Friday night at the Phoenix airport. Once she was safely fastened to the dash, we embarked on the journey to our hotel for the night. Or so we thought.
You see, to function properly, a GPS unit must be communicating with the satellites. It is difficult to accomplish such a feat WHEN THE ENTERPRISE GUY TURNS OFF THAT FUNCTIONALITY! That’s right, upon leaving the airport, Vicky began operating in simulation mode. Basically, that means she reads off all of the steps of the journey, regardless of where you are at the time.
After a series of attempts to follow Vicky’s apparently haphazard directions, and her continued drawing of the right route, despite our wrong turns, I uttered the title phrase, “Vicky’s retarded, but she sure can draw!” I’m sure it was a lot funnier during our near-midnight, post-flight daze, but I thought it was worth repeating.
So, once we got Vicky talking to the satellites, the trip went amazingly well. We intend to get our own Vicky sometime soon, along with comprehensive operating instructions.
HJacobs said
How lucky for you that you don’t have anyone with special needs in your family. If you did you certainly wouldn’t have thought it funny to call your GPS retarded, and think it’s so clever that you wrote about it.
It’s not okay to take away people’s dignity with a casual remark. So, the next time you want to name something that doesn’t work, it would be great if you thought about how demeaning and hurtful your words are before you called them retarded.
Jeff Proctor said
re·tard
v. re·tard·ed, re·tard·ing, re·tards
To cause to move or proceed slowly; delay or impede.
(Source: Dictionary.com)