What do you want for Christmas? Various members of your family are already asking you this question and you never really have the right answer.
Dec. 25 is going to roll around and three Starbucks gift cards and two “As Seen On TV” items later, you’ll really wish you had come up with something when they asked.
Two holiday seasons ago, I finally had an incredibly inspired gift need — a GPS. You see, I was born with that one disease where you get in your car, pull out of your driveway and look up and see you are at the state line and can’t really explain why.
Gifts should be something you would never spend money on but desperately want and that was exactly what the GPS was for me. We spent one and a half beautiful years together and then my car was broken into by some punk-ass kids, who will one day receive their punishment in a dark alley with a grease Dumpster in it.
Last weekend I was forced to embark on a road trip sans TomTom the GPS. I was making my way to Stillwater to see the 6A football state championship game because I just love young boys and organized sports.
Somewhere around Guthrie, the Google Maps application on my phone told me to take a right turn onto a highway, which I am pretty sure was labeled 666. About 15 minutes down the road, I was violently aware that I was in the middle of nowhere — and it felt nothing like that Hanson album.
The only things I could see were abandoned trailer homes and little green signs with arrows pointing to cemeteries. I was running low on gas and my phone “could not activate data.” Obviously this is when my car breaks down and the flesh-hungry zombies descend upon my innocent young body.
I switched on Girl Talk so if the undead did attack, it would be more “Zombieland” and less “28 Days Later.”
Using my mature, calm voice, I called my father for help. “Hi Daddy, I was just calling to tell you I love you because I am going to die on a deserted highway from zombies!” Insert me hyperventilating and crying mascara-filled tears.
After my father sorted through every obscenity trying to decide which one accurately described the situation, he told me he couldn’t really help me.
I pulled over in a driveway, performed a sobbing, self-loathing monologue and waited for a withered zombie paw to knock on my window.
In the end, the walking dead never came and it turns out I was going the correct direction the whole time. I was just on a route that averaged more covered wagons than cars thanks to my archaic version of Google Maps.
So what do I want for Christmas? Another GPS please! And if you can find one that dispenses anti-anxiety medication that would be great.
— Caitlin Turner, letters senior
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DavidM 1 year, 5 months ago
No reason to get all stressed out. Next time you are driving out of town stop at an Oklahoma visitor center and pick up a free map...Or buy one at Wal-mart. It's really not difficult to read road maps. Invest 5 minutes in looking at a map and you will see that the route to Stillwater from Norman is about only 2 major turns. I know, I know you can't input addresses into a road map. I think you will find reading a map a good way to stimulate thinking. Technology is great but it has made us all pretty lazy.
leimapapa 1 year, 5 months ago
Boo to the above comment. Yay laziness!
... totally almost didn't bother to write this.