How Did I End Up Here?

A couple of years ago, I purchased a small GPS as a gift for my wife at Christmas. It allows her to arrive at the places she set out to find and conversely, find her way home afterwards. She describes herself as directionally challenged which is nice speak for “where the %*^&@! am I and how do I get home?” I, on the other hand could take you to a small creek in Wyoming where I fished on afternoon at the age of 15 and show you exactly where I caught 26 brown trout.


When we moved to France last year, I purchased a chip from Garmin that was supposed to have every street, alley, and roundabout in the entire country in its data base. There have been some problems. Let me explain. Because it allowed me to choose a language I naturally chose English since I have been speaking it since childhood. When I asked for directions a man’s voice with an English accent would come on and pronounce the French street names as though there were English words. I never could match up the streets with the bloke’s pronunciation. I speak French with a reasonable accent and none of the names he spoke had the faintest resemblance to the actual streets I was looking for. So… I changed the language to French and got a most pleasant French woman pronouncing each street exactly and precisely in a manner that was understandable and accurate. I have found that in life however, for every plus there is usually a minus. I call it Frank’s Law of Revenge.

The current voice on the GPS, Betty, as my wife refers to her, always wants me to go the shortest way. It’s her way of annoying me. Thus the Law of Revenge comes into play. Satellites don’t seem to know about detours for street repairs or understand the French propensity for changing one way streets to flow in the opposite direction over night. Mind you, the shortest way is often not the fastest way. We were coming back from Angouleme on the national highway which was well marked and directing us to our town of Mont de Marsan. Twelve minutes outside of Angouleme and Betty blurts out “in one mile turn right.” Having been raised to do what I was told, I turned right and found myself driving down a one lane road and onto a large farm. Betty directed me around the barn and onto a much smaller road that eventually passed through fifty six small villages with population of less than seven but each having a church built in the twelfth century. Usually such roads are blocked with stray sheep, goats, dogs or very old French farmers wearing rubber boots and driving brand new John Deere tractors at less than 10km/hr. This one had one of each. By the time I found my way back to the original highway, it added an extra hour to our trip.

Sometimes, when I really know where I am going I will intentionally not turn where Betty tells me to turn. She then does some quick recalculation and tries to get me back to her original route. After a while, I hear some words in French that my mother would be proud I have not learned and she gives up.

If I have driven somewhere once I can usually get there again. So when people say “do you know how to find XYZ?” my answer is always “Yes, I went fishing there once.”

Thanks for listening I feel much better.