GPS

Today I took a trip to Guitar Center in a town an hour away to pick up a bass cab - our local Guitar Center was out of them.  It's not a big town, but it's big enough to have a Guitar Center, and I halfway know my way around the town.  But what I did, and what almost everyone does today, I plugged the address into a GPS, turned up Sirius XM's "Bluesville" station, and put the mind on autopilot.  The GPS is saying  "in one quarter miles turn left..."  Not "turn south" but "turn left".  Pre-GPS I would have relied on my inner compass, sense of direction, street direction, and so forth.  I would have left the city with a greater understanding, and easier navigation for my next visit.  Instead, I get "turn right and arrive at your destination", and I'm in the Guitar Center parking lot.  I hadn't paid enough attention to know how to get home.  I load up my bass cab, turn the GPS back on, and hit the "Take Me Home" button.  The GPS takes me home on a different route.  I couldn't find my way back there if I had to.  But I don't have to find my way back - the satellites will watch over me.

There's no way I'd have believed this back in the seventies.