Del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon
The Sightseer
TomTom came fully loaded: route planning, traffic and weather alerts, and an optional warning when I'm exceeding the speed limit. I declined the latter, as my car was already equipped with that feature. It's called Jennifer.TomTom also let me choose a celebrity voice to give me directions. I passed on John Cleese because when you've made a wrong turn, the last thing you want is to be berated by your navigational system. It struck me as odd -- not to mention dangerous -- to be taking driving tips from Gary Busey, so I nixed him. The same went for Mr. T. Listening to his voice for two hours would have resulted in my driving over a cliff.
Of the nonceleb voices, Sylvie had a come-hither-to-yon-destination bedroom voice, while Mandy's bland, nonconfrontational demeanor reminded us of everyone's second-favorite aunt. We went with Mandy.
We were now prepared to put TomTom to the test on a trip that would take us from Jennifer's mother's home in Rochester, New York, to my sister's in Ithaca, two hours and six minutes away. I tapped the coordinates (a fancy term for addresses) on the NAV's touch screen, which, since I was able to do it, means it was pretty easy. Seeing the colorful screen come alive, our four-year-old, Quinn, assumed it was a small TV. "Hannah Montana!" she shouted.
"No, upstate New York," I corrected. With bags packed and car humming, we put our trip in Mandy's hands.
At the first intersection, Mandy promptly intoned, "Turn right." "Aren't we supposed to turn left?" Jennifer asked.
We were already lost. We'd made this trip dozens of times, and this was not our normal route.
"Maybe she knows a better way," I said, making the right turn.
"Here's the highway," Jennifer said.
"That's someone's house."
"Are you sure?"
"Have you ever seen a highway ramp with a mailbox?" It is this sort of helpful navigation that convinced me to get a GPS system.
"In a quarter-mile, turn left. ... In 125 yards, turn left," said Mandy. "Turn left." Maybe because Mandy's not much of a conversationalist, Quinn put in another request for Hannah Montana.
"Do you know where we're going?" asked Jennifer.
"Not a clue, but it's pretty," I said.
Mandy, it appears, is a bit of a sightseer. Rather than have us take 390 to 90, as I had assumed, she had us toodling through bucolic Pittsford. It then dawned on me that when I input my preferences, I'd opted for the cheapskate route, skipping all tolls, something we'd never done before. Mandy was saving me money. If we could just skip 372 more tolls, she would pay for herself. I was fully prepared to forget all about the coquettish Sylvie when Mandy grew quiet. Too quiet.
Advertisement 
Your Comments
See all
...