You Can Find Your Way Home - On The 303

File under: impotent whining

Christmas and new year are filled with tired and stressed people making unfamiliar journeys and visits, desperately chasing a good time and being disappointed. As such it's the traditional time of year for bitter family arguments. On New Year's day I visited my sister and when I was driving home I fell out very badly with the irritating, supercilious, passive-aggressive bitch that is my sat-nav.

If you disobey her she gets in a silent huff for several seconds and then disapprovingly says "recalculating". There are two ways home from my sister's house, the long way on the motorways and a much shorter cross country route on a succession of twisty B-roads all the same. The sat-nav set her heart on the cross country route and begged me at every single junction to turn back.

"in 200 yards turn left"
"no, we're going on the motorway"
"... recalculating ... at the roundabout take the third exit"
"no"
"... recalculating ... recalculating ... recalculating"
After about the hundredth "recalculating" I was begging her, before I lost my temper.
"Every other journey we've ever taken together I have done everything you wanted. Even that time we went from Wallington to Guildford via fucking Kingston. Just this once, PLEASE, can't we go my way? Why don't you ever support me?"
"... recalculating"
"That's your answer to everything isn't it? Why don't you actually recalculate it from our current location, rather than relying on your cached route plan, we're nearly on the fucking M4 you dim-witted bint."
"... recalculating".
By the time we were on the motorway heading towards Bristol I'd got personal and offensive.
"Listen to me you fucking harridan. I'd rather be directed home by the Microsoft office assistant from the late 90s. 'It looks like you're writing a letter, would you like me to fuck up every aspect of the format and punctuation while simultaneously slowing your computer to a grinding crawl?' At least by now it would have said 'it looks like you're driving home via Bristol'".
"... recalculating"
It wasn't until we were on the M5 heading towards Exeter that she quietly got the idea, revised her ETA downwards by an hour, and stopped pestering me.

Richard "she can't be reasoned with, she can't be bargained with, and she absolutely will not apologise" B