Here there be dragons...

"I'm telling you stories. Trust me." - Winterson

But... Water is always south. Isn't it?

There are lots of animals that learn at a very young age how to find food; today I learned tech can too πŸ˜‚ 

So I had Mum's car at the new house (like really new, we've owned it since lunch time).   Mum's car rather than mine because it has significantly more space in it for the transporting of stuff.  All good except I know neither the car, nor the location, and being not my car it is, reasonably, not stocked with my stuff.

Now when I got to the house it said I had about 50km of gas left...  Which means not enough to get home. But that's okay - lots of gas between here and there; C and I were even at a gas station not far away when we were looking at houses.

Spend the afternoon cleaning, cause the house is a disaster.  I don't get how they managed to get it SO bad in only a year.  And am moderately amused that apparently there was one roommate not like the others -- the room that will be my office is the only room in the house w a lock on the door AND also the only room that's clean and smoke-free.  But the rest of the house.  Ugh.

And - my phone was quickly draining battery, both cause I was using it to play music and cause it was searching for cell signal all day.   Nbd - I'd brought charge cable.  Plug in and continue working away.

Time to go home.  Phone is essentially dead.  Hmmm less than good.  Turns out the plug wasn't working.  For move-in ready, this house is requiring an awful lot of work :(    C went down and did some magic in the basement and the plug started again.  Alas, too late for my poor phone.

Get in car and of course none of my chargers are with me.  However, Mum had a few!  Win :)   Except that when I plugged in, all it did was connect me to the car, not actually feed my phone any power :(   Fail.  And somehow the car is now down to 40km left?  πŸ€·‍♀️   

So C's directions on how to get to gas "take either the first or the second road and it's down there."   Uh right.  That's sure to end well πŸ˜‚   The first was a piddly little street so I took the second.  I realized pretty quickly it wasn't the right one, but seemed to be a grid-type setup, so figured I'd be able to loop back at top.  Alas, that was incorrect.  I *did*, however, find myself at the highway so I figured I'd hop on and there would be gas somewhere along the way...   But, uh, north or south?  None of the signs had locations listed.  Fail.  Well we turned away from the water so therefore new town is north of the highway I want to end up on, so let's head south...

Yup, realized pretty quickly that was wrong too.   Fail.   Also, maybe I should look up my new home on an actual map πŸ˜‚   Since I clearly have no idea where it actually is.  My whole life the water has been south, but occurs to me out there it's actually north.  Damn Golden Horseshoe.  And that just might be too much for my little brain.   So now I'm on a road that I can't just pull over to the side to ask my rapidly-dying phone for help.  And I'm down to 30kms left of gas.  hmmmm.

For those not from around here, I've always lived on top of the water ;) Even when not in Ontario.  
Suffice to say, new house is below the water...

And then the nav/entertainment system goes black.  White words flash up: "You're almost out of gas!"   Well gee thanks Car.  Super-helpful.   The loud ding and big orange gas light on the dash also told me that.  I get that you're hungry, but I'm working on it.

But then...  Then Car's self-preservation kicked in.  "Would you like directions to a near-by gas station?"

Why yes, yes I would. 

She offered me several options and I went w the closest brand I recognized πŸ˜‚    The trip there took me through a tunnel under the canal, which was somewhat fascinating in that it was torrential rain out, so coming out of the tunnel it looked like cars were being swallowed by a wall of white.   But other than that, Car quickly and accurately led me to gas.   Win.

And since my phone was dying, I took the time to program home into Car as well, and let her figure out how to get me back to the highway (over a bridge this time) and pointed the right direction πŸ˜‚.  That's usually either Alexa or Siri's job (depending whether I want Spanish and reliable or English and dodgy) but both were on time-out due to dying phone...

So Car for the win today.  That is definitely the best random use of technology I've seen lately.  My car certainly doesn't offer that ;-P   And yes, she even got me home correctly.


1 comments:

I also tend to navigate by "where is the (large body of) water?" But I grew up in Windsor, where the water (the Detroit River) is generally north. Except in Amherstburg, where the river takes a turn as it empties into Lake Erie, and then it's kinda ... west? So, y'know, it's not a perfect system ...

 

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