You fucked me, Google · 1:17am Sep 7th, 2023
I was driving this morning (well, yesterday morning, since it is already Thursday) back home on an unusual road, from a distant town that I had never been to, and I suffered a small incident. I was driving on a road in an unpopulated area, at 100 kilometers per hour, very calm, confident that Google Maps would take me home safely, when suddenly the GPS tells me to deviate from the road and take a dirt road. The reasonable thing to do would have been to ignore the GPS and continue on the road, but in the 5 seconds I had to decide whether or not to take the detour, I got nervous and decided to take the detour, as the GPS probably knew better how to get back to home than I did. Big mistake.
First I spent about ten minutes driving on a road full of good stones, the car shaking mercilessly, liquefying the contents of my stomach, and my head, if possible. Then I saw a stretch of dirt ahead, with almost no stones, and I was relieved: the wobbling was finally over. I got to the stretch; The car began to slide from left to right, exactly like a snake, and only then, late, did my mind decide to remember that for the last few days Sponia has been subjected to a major cold front, and of course the blessed dirt had turned to mud, which the car's wheels splashed both on the road and on the car itself. Anyway, not far away the section of mud ended and I found myself in another section of rocks; sad relief.
Ahead I saw a puddle. It wasn't small, but it wasn't too big either: about half the length of the car. I passed over him; the car was already full of mud anyway. How could water with dirt be worse than dirt with water? I found out when I drove over the puddle... and the car began to smell like my town smells when they fertilize the fields with guano, which is not of a very good quality, which leads me to think that on that puddle, and specifically on that lonely puddle, I must emphasize, had pooped some animal (maybe human, who knows?). But I had already left it behind, so, ignoring the throbbing in my temples, as well as the rocks and the smell of humanity, I continued on the path. A good way ahead, just after a curve behind some trees, a climb up a hill awaited me; there should be no more puddles. And I was not mistaken: the next puddle, as I checked when I reached the first trees, was in front of the curve, and this puddle was longer than my car. I stopped.
I couldn't go back. Poop, mud, and rocks aside, the dirt road would send me back, against traffic, to a one-way road; The two lanes together made a space too narrow to allow me to make a U-turn easily, and the several cars that passed by were going 100 per hour. I had to keep going, but wouldn't my car get stuck in the puddle?
Better check it. I got out of the car and walked over to the puddle. I saw that beyond a small rise at the end of the first puddle, another one was waiting for me, but it seemed small; It wouldn't give me problems. I grabbed a branch that was nearby and walked around the puddle, crouching, feeling the bottom with it. When I reached the other side, on the small rise, I decided that it was not too deep, and that to avoid unpleasant surprises, a little acceleration would be enough; I had plenty of space. So I straightened up, throwing the branch aside, and I thank my underwear a thousand times for containing my poor testicles, which fell out when I saw the fucking Caspian before me. Well, the puddle was not as big as the sea, but suffice it to say that, if I passed by there, the car and driver would disappear.
Giggling a little laugh (better to laugh than roar, right?), I got back in the car and headed back the way I had come. When I got to the road, I would simply wait there, an hour if necessary, until there was not a single car (or police helicopter) in sight, and then I would make a U-turn and take it. So I endured again, for almost another quarter of an hour, the poop, the mud and the stones. I didn't have much left to get to the road when, yay!, Google Maps showed me a new route, which was on another dirt road that would not take me back to the highway against traffic.
Very happy, I took the new route. I would no longer have to make a U-turn on that road, with the risks that entailed. So I continued forward much calmer, on a path that was also full of stones, but that would undoubtedly take me to a less risky destination from which to return home. Then, despite how much the stones, the smell, and the fall of my testicles had affected my judgment, a little bell managed to ring in my head, and I stopped dead. Exactly what destination was the app taking me to? I slid my finger several times on the mobile screen, to see where it took me. Apparently, the road was taking me in a huge turn… back to the dirt road from before, the one with the poop and the Caspian.
"Oh, look! How nice!" I said, containing the urge to eat the Huawei, which would do me more harm than to it, and I looked for a new route back home in the app. I discovered a detour ahead that took me almost in a straight line to a gas station, from which I could take another route back home. Very happy, I went ahead and took that detour, sure that now everything would turn out well.
I came across a somewhat large hill, which the GPS had not had the detail to warn me about. But it wasn't that bad; I kept driving. While going up that road full of, of course, stones, the car swayed as the Titanic must have swayed when it hit its own stone that sad night, the chassis ending up as skinned as the hull of the aforementioned ship. But it wasn't that bad; I kept driving. I reached the top, and came across another small puddle. I would have gone over it, after all the sides of the car were already full of mud, if it hadn't been for a chair and a small tent that, what a coincidence, were next to the puddle. The owner wasn't there (I think), but I didn't want his belongings to end up like my car, so I took a quick right to avoid the puddle; and I would have been satisfied with this action had it not been for the fact that, as I did so, a small tree to the right crashed into my rearview mirror, closing it. I stopped and got out of the car to open it again. I saw that it had been scratched. I simply opened it and got back to the car. I also saw that ahead awaited me a descent as rugged as the ascent. But it wasn't that bad; I kept driving. I went down the hill, and I was alive and the car… functional; What more could I ask for, an ice cream? In front I saw that another hill was waiting for me, twice as big as the previous one, which Google Maps had not had the detail to warn me about either. But it wasn't that bad; I kept driving. I was scared to see that the way up was divided by a deep ditch that ran zigzagly up to the very top; I would have to maneuver the steering wheel a little to avoid getting stuck halfway up the climb, although it didn't seem like too difficult a feat. Also, surprise! The path had hardly any stones: it was almost all dirt. So I started the climb, very optimistic, but, surprise!, the path had hardly any stones: it was almost all mud. A third of the way up, even though it was only in third gear, the car stopped, the wheels slipping in the mud, and stalled. I braked, and thanks to Faust the car did not slide on the way back like down a chute, but when I accelerated again, this time in first gear, the wheels slipped again on the mud and the car stalled. When the fourth attempt failed, I deduced that the fifth would bring me the same result, so I had to think of another strategy. Maybe, if I had been in a calmer state of mind, I would have come up with some... calmer solution, but being as I was, covered in mud and poop, with the poor car hit and I wanting to transform into the Hulk, like Fluttershy, and crush something (or someone, like the dude from the tent behind, why not?), I couldn't think of anything other than to back up to the base of the hill, put the car in first gear and, spoiled by the Fast and Furious movies, accelerating and going towards the top of the hill, all in first gear, while, to give myself courage, I sang the Marcha Real, specifically the version with lyrics by José María Pemán.
You can criticize my means, but not my results, because I reached the top. And after taking a moment to catch my breath and my sanity, I started to go down the hill, towards the gas station, which I could already see from there. The descent was long, and full of stones; nothing I wasn't used to. Finally I reached flat, and I could see, right in front, blessed cemented soil. I made the final acceleration. It was already there, at the end of the tunnel! The misfortunes were over. But in my euphoria I did not pay attention to a man and two police officers who, from the gas station, were telling me with their arms to stop, and so it was that, just a meter in front of the gas station lot, I passed over a puddle that was not as long as it was deep, and it splashed me full of mud on the sides, below, above, in front and behind, with force.
Then I stopped. One of the policemen (the other policeman turned around, perhaps to hide his laughter or not to give me a spanking; the man grabbed his two dogs and walked away from me with a mixture of fear and pity) came up to me and he waved me to the side, which I did, and asked me where [the fuck] did I came from. I told him, and where I was going, and that the GPS had taken me on a dirt road. He told me that it was very strange, because he knew the dirt road that I had taken, and it led to a river. How funny it would have been if by some miracle I had crossed the Caspian only to end up in the Pacific, huh? So he showed me the direction to my town and, after thanking him, I joined the road in front of me. I looked at the mobile. Curious, its directions took me in the exact opposite direction to what the policeman had given me. But then I was already in that state of indifference to everything experienced by those who have been to Normandy or Lepanto, and I was lucid enough to ignore the GPS and follow the policeman's instructions.
Twenty minutes later I was back home. I cleaned the car as well as a car can be cleaned with a hose and brush, leaving it at least decent, and went inside home. I wanted to lie in bed for a while and dream about ponies, but I was feeling weak; I needed to recharge batteries. I went to the kitchen for an ice cream. I knew there was one left; the last ice cream of summer. I opened the fridge. My mother had eaten it.
The wise say that mistakes are there to learn from. A valuable lesson can then be drawn from here. Said in a civilized way: You should never take dirt roads, and common sense should always prevail over machine logic. Said in an uncivilized way: I shit on your dead, Google. It's not enough for you with YouTube Kids or the chaos with Stadia (which even today I don't understand what it is/was), you have to make the world an even more miserable place by creating applications that troll people, and also unintentionally but with effectiveness. When I have moneys, I will switch to the apple brand and use Apple Maps; I know that hurts you.
Oh my God. I don't know if it's because of the eventful day or because of the valerian I just took, but my head is spinning. I'm going to bed to pass out. Good night.
Bad news. Siri hates us just as much and dislikes interstates. Particularly after dark. I've had this conversation many times.
"Take the next exit."
(eyes the dark and forbidding road against the comfortable interstate I'm on that goes to my destination.) "No thanks."
"Use the right lane to take this exit in a quarter-mile."
(continues driving past the exit with the flying monkeys and the skeletal hitchhikers. Drives for another five miles.)
"In 1.2 miles, take the exit." (and so it goes.)
Best story so far: I was going to Muscotah (Mus-koh-tah) Kansas and thought I had gotten onto the wrong road. Asked Siri. She told me to turn around. CHECKED Siri's map. She had me going to Muskoka, Ontario, 1200 miles away. By that time, I was at the town. (Population 150, birthplace of Joe Tinker, National Baseball Hall of Fame 1946)
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Well, this is fantastic. Google Assistant trolls us, Siri trolls us, Alexa trolls us, Cortana trolled us before she died, Copilot will surely troll us too, Bard is drunk, Bixby is drunker, Bing Maps is broken and apparently Tesla cars suffer from spontaneous combustion and intermittent blindness. We are all doomed.