Navigation Error

Everyone knows that men will never ask for directions. Nor do they read instructions when putting a new toy together. They don't need to if they are married.

I recall an incident that occurred shortly after our wedding. We were living temporarily in a 27-foot trailer behind my parent's house. After digging a cesspool, we needed to lift the trailer off the cement blocks and roll it to a new location. My father and I and an employee were trying feverishly to get the trailer off the blocks and onto its wheels again, but all to no avail. The jacks sank into the soft ground; a wooden beam we tried using to pry with broke. A second one was too short. My wife Verna came over and asked if she could help. Three grown men responded in chorus, "No, we can handle this ourselves."

Verna watched as we sweated and huffed and puffed with no success. Finally, she asked, "Why don't you get a shovel and dig under the blocks?" (No further commentary needed)

An elderly couple (it wasn't this one) was taking a longer trip and the weary husband finally relinquished the steering wheel to his wife after hours of driving. The wife got into some traffic and became entirely frustrated and confused. Turning to her husband, she asked, "What do I do now?" Without hesitation, the husband replied, "If you were sitting here you would know!"

On Saturday, we were invited to the Williams home for "Hour's Devours" (I don't know how to spell it, but it is a French term for lots of little bits of good tasting food that take an hour to eat). Many of our good friends were there on time, waiting politely for us to arrive so they could begin.

I had been to the Williams home three times, but each time, we traveled with someone else and each time they took a different route. Still, I was convinced that I could find their place. If all else failed, we had a cell phone.

When we were within a mile of the Williams residence, I realized that we could drive hours without finding the place, so I asked my wife to call. She forgot bring the cell phone.

No problem! Husbands never forget to bring their GPS. There was an appropriate cartoon in today's paper that even gives my name, which is not taken in vain.

I poked the Williams' address into my GPS and gave the command, "Route to this address!" GPS stands for "Global Positioning System" and it is sometimes called "Navigation System." It is a fantastic device that never fails to tell you where you are and in the absence of a wife or in the presence of a wife who forgot her cell phone, it can tell men where to go. Our GPS can even be programmed to tell me in German, but every talking GPS only has a female voice. Men are accustomed to taking orders from women. The only place men give orders to women is in restaurants and the woman expects a nice tip for that humiliation.

My GPS told me to turn around and head in the opposite direction, so I obliged. After a mile or two, I said to Verna, "Something is wrong! I am certain that the Williams' house isn't in this direction. Verna assured me that the female GPS voice had to be right, so I continued driving where she told me to go. After a couple of miles, I insisted that the GPS was wrong and that I was right. I made a "U" turn and the GPS lady said, "Off route! Recalculating!" After several more such remarks, I had had enough and turned her off.

My wife took over where she left off. I dutifully turned the GPS back on and followed instructions until I "arrived at destination." I was in the right municipality, the road sign and house number were correct, but this was definitely NOT the Williams' residence. I headed for home and there was complete silence in our car. We discovered later that there are two identical addresses in that town, but they are miles apart!

When we got home, Verna called the Williams homestead and told them not to wait for us. She wrote down instructions and we departed a second time. This time I had both a GPS and a cell phone, but I didn't need either one. My reliable navigator-wife got me there in record time.