Hurting Each Other

            Agnes is the name I gave to the voice that comes out of the Garmin GPS device I have in my car. I named it after Karen and Richard Carpenter’s mother, who by most accounts was a bitter, angry, obsessively compulsive and prejudiced woman. Not long after I purchased the device, the voice drove me crazy by repeating itself, telling me to go back from where I just came, giving me wrong-side-of-the-street information, and generally making me feel like I did something wrong.

            So, having just researched the hell out of the Carpenter family for an e-book and a report on NPR, Agnes became the name of the voice on my GPS.

            The other day, Agnes stopped talking. Either she got laryngitis from being in the car all winter long, or she finally read up on Karen and Richard’s mom and stopped talking because she's insulted. I’m going with the latter, because everyone knows that a GPS can’t get laryngitis.

P.S. I emailed Garmin, and they informed me that the unit’s hard drive may have gotten messed up when I downloaded some new maps. Well... perhaps. But the question still remains: did Agnes read up on Mrs. Carpenter before or after I downloaded the maps?