Turn Right? or Turn Wrong?

"Turn right," said the softly synthesized voice of the GPS unit sitting on the truck dashboard. We are traveling on Provincial Route 20 towards the city of Quebec en route for a sled dog trip to the town of Chicoutimi, 2 hours farther the north. My friend and driver Greg has outfitted his vehicle with one of the most popular technological toys available these days and tells me with confidence it will get us anywhere we want to go. I want to believe him, or perhaps because I am an IT guy, feel like I should believe in the wondrous capabilities of this device. But at this particular moment I am not so sure.

Despite my intuition that it is a mistake, we dutifully turn off the highway and follow the ramp to an intersecting roadway. "Turn right," says the machine again. I have driven to Quebec before and am reasonably certain that something has gone awry with his little high-tech marvel, but Greg has faith and is too stubborn to rely on logic (or reason, anyway). To make matters more complicated, he has neglected to bring along any sort of paper map and so once we crossed the border out of Vermont, we are essentially at the mercy of the satellite network spiraling in the skies above us. That neither of us speaks any reasonable semblance of French in this provincial island of foreign language is merely icing on our foolish cake.

At the first intersection we reach, a red-light, the GPS pipes up with the same phrase, "Turn right". Once again we follow directions, taking a smaller side street in what appears to be a suburban neighborhood. In mere moments we are approaching a stop sign and it is simply formulaic to hear the now familiar words, "Turn right." This time we navigate down a narrow street lined with one after another of nearly identical looking houses until the voice issues forth its instructions once more, "Turn right."

By now I am certain I will spend the night lying restlessly in bed with this simple phrase echoing persistently in my mind, my subconscious twisting in endless circles until I am dizzy and quite possibly delusional. So though I know it makes logical sense, when we approach the same street to which we had exited from the highway in the first place, I am almost stunned when the GPS utters a new command, "Turn left.”

After this momentary change in instruction, it is no surprise at all to hear "Turn right," as we near the entrance ramp to the highway. By relying on the directions of this small piece off electrical wizardry we have, it seems, gone in a complete circle. Though our progress north has been delayed by a mere 5 minutes and we are back on the proper route again, my confidence in technology has been shattered. "Turn right", I say to Greg in my best imitation of a synthetic voice, "and maybe turn wrong, too".