The One Where Felicia Met a Watery Grave

The George Washington Bridge
April 2007

Back in the day before every phone had Google Maps, you would rely on this monstrosity that would hang from your windshield to tell you where you were. It would strategically come crashing to the dashboard just as the passenger (or your dogs) fell asleep, sending them into shock and putting said passenger in a foul mood for the duration of your trip.

The idea was simple enough: Have a satellite available to point you in the direction of a Starbucks, a specific gas station, or a water park. Except it never worked the way it was designed.

First of all, how Garmin or TomTom or whatever worthless company assigned their satellites was like America Online: they only had about three satellites per 5,000,000 units. And there was a mood sensor built in to the GPS, so that if you were going to work or church or anywhere that you already knew the location of, it would work perfectly. If you were agitated, lost, or had been driving with the gas light on for 60 miles, it couldn't acquire a satellite until you were upside down in a ditch with 3" of water.

And, if you didn't plug your GPS unit in and manually update, it wouldn't know a Phillips 66 from Studio 54 -and you can imagine the frustration if it took you to either one. We name everything. Our car is Julio (what? It's a Santa Fe). My phone is Joseph. Kami's old car was Olivia (may God rest its soul). This way, we don't feel so silly about getting angry at inanimate objects. We may be the only dictators to actually humanize our subjects.

nter Felicia. Felicia was the Garmin graciously given to Kami and myself from my parents, mainly to help us navigate the streets and roads of New England. Except we didn't have the software to update it.

Normally in Upstate New York that wouldn't matter -because nothing had changed since Washington Irving had written about it. But on the occasion that you drove to New York City, things could get a little dicey.

This is where our story continues. I can only speak in vague generalities because Felicia completely sold us out. I do know this: we were driving from Brooklyn back towards Cooperstown, and somehow ended up in the Bronx.

Kami and I are the type who appreciate and embrace diversity. But we knew we were not where we were supposed to be.

Stumbling on a gas station on our own while Felicia electronically cackled at us, we reset our destination to Cooperstown and then spent 45 minutes driving around the interstate but never actually getting on, taking fake ramps and side streets that looked like death waited for us at the end of each turn. Enough was enough, I'm not going to get pushed around by electronics.

Again, on our own, we made our way to the George Washington Bridge and prepared to go home. As we made our way over the Bridge, Kami looked at me. I looked at Kami. She nodded, and it was on.

I lowered the window and slowly released Felicia from her worthless cradle. I reassured her, saying, "Listen, it's not you. You just weren't updated as much as you should have been. It's not your fault, but you have issues, and your issues are negatively impacting me."

Like Ike Turner, I whipped Felicia out the window and into the river. The last word out of her mouth was, "Recalculating," which was the most fitting way for her to go.