Absolutely Bananas: Seattle mom blog

She listens but doesn’t hear me at all

One of the many excellent features of The Awesome Minivan is that it has cutting-edge voice recognition command capabilities.

(minivans are so high-tech)

In theory, it works like this.

The driver pushes a button and states a command.

“XM radio on.”

As if by magic, the XM radio turns on.

When I learned about this feature, I was really excited. My minivan is on-par with Knight Rider. A talking car? How cool is that?

Only, as is too often the case with these types of new-fangled devices, the voice recognition is a little, shall we say, glitchy.

I say, “XM radio on,”

And the robot in the dashboard responds with a very confident, “High beams on!” and turns on my headlights to full brightness.

I look at Jay. “Seriously? That doesn’t sound at all like what I said!”

He shrugs.

I try again. “XM RADIO ON!” I shout.

(shouting works for people who don’t speak English, so it must work for car robots. Right?!)

“Passenger mirror defog!” responds my ever-so-helpful but rather misguided robot friend, and the mirror starts to heat up.

“NOOOOO!!!!!” I howl, “XM RADIO! ON!”

“I’m sorry, I do not understand. Please repeat your command.”

Apparently this robot wasn’t programmed to understand Hysterical.

I take a deep breath.

“Maybe you should try something else?” Jay suggests.

Ok, whatever.

I push the button and say VERY CLEARLY, “Change station to 103.7 FM.”

“GPS home position set to current location.”

I bang my head against the steering wheel. WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! and somewhere in all the banging, my forehead hits the magic voice recognition button. WHAM! WHAM!

“XM Radio On!” shouts the robot.

And, as if by magic, my XM radio turns on.

If you’re feel like it, head on over to Seattle Mom Blogs and check out my latest Essential advice for new bloggers post in which I give many tips for Fitting blogging into your life without losing your mind, relationships, and waistline. Now if I could only figure out how to follow my own advice!

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Face off: Jenny vs. the GPS

“I don’t want a GPS,” I inform Jay (rather smugly), “I think they’re unnecessary.”

Jay shakes his head in disbelief. “You don’t want a GPS. YOU. Seriously?”

He has a point… I do have a terrible sense for direction and a propensity for getting lost at the worst possible moment.

“I know it sounds weird,” I explain, “but I just think that if I had a GPS telling me where to go all the time, I’d never know where I was or how to get anywhere.”

“And that’s different from now because…?“ his tone is sarcastic.

I pretend not to hear him. (sometimes you just have to do that in a marriage)

I really don’t want a GPS. I don’t want a DVD player either. We don’t need a DVD player in our car. It’s good for kids to have to think… to look out the window… to get bored.

We don’t need heated leather seats or satellite radio or a 6-disc CD player or 12 cup holders either. Yet somehow we get them, along with the DVD player AND the GPS.

What can I say… I’m a sucker.

Also, it’s hard to say no to features when they’re right there all shiny and new. You start feeling the need to collect them like broken seashells.

“My minivan has so many features,” I find myself boasting, listing them off one by one as if the person to whom I’m talking actually cares about the backup camera or doors that open all by themselves.

So now I have a car with many features including a GPS, which I SAID I didn’t want but now I’m finding is actually a really cool thing. First of all it shows my location on a map (which is not really all that helpful to those of us who are direction-impaired, but is definitely pretty and colorful).

Secondly, there’s this feature where the GPS lady comes on and tells you EVERY SINGLE MOVE before you need to make it in order to get you to your destination.

This GPS lady, she has a soothing, pleasing tone and she always knows where to go. She’s thoughtful and concise, and she never says confusing stuff like “West” or “North.”

Still, after following her directions for a while, I find that the rebel inside me starts to rise up.

(I don’t like to be told what to do)

“Turn left in one quarter mile,” says GPS lady.

I grip the steering wheel just a bit tighter. I don’t think I will, I mutter to myself. And what are you going to do about THAT?!

“Turn left here,” says GPS lady.

Ha ha ha ha! I’m NOT turning left! Now what are ya gonna do with me? Huh? huh?

“In one mile, U-turn,” says GPS lady.

Oh no… I don’t think so!

“In one quarter mile, make a U-turn.”

“I’M NOT U-TURNING!”

“Take the next right, and then right again,” She’s trying a new tactic. But I WILL NOT BE FOOLED. A u-turn using fancy direction speak is still a u-turn.

“YOU ARE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!” I howl in gleeful delight.

“Mommy?” CJ peers up at me from the backseat, “Mommy, why are you yelling?”

“Oh never mind, CJ,” I say, “Just put on your wireless headphones and watch your DVD.”

Back to my showdown with the GPS lady.

Oh that’s right, I’m still not turning around. I’m in charge here!

Did she just say, “Turn this car around RIGHT NOW, young lady!”?

No, I must have imagined it.

At last she concedes victory over to me (AHA!) and comes up with a whole new route based on my last-minute deviation. Truth be told, she is surprisingly unruffled by my failure to obey.

I have to admit I admire her.

She’s spunky, the GPS lady.

This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

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