It was an event we were happily anticipating for several weeks. I should, actually, say that we had been anticipating this event for several years because I remember distinctly where and when I was told about this event. And since I don’t remember much these days, that’s saying a lot.

The event was on Saturday night. My husband and I were all dressed up and ready to go. We got in our car and my husband typed the address of our destination into the GPS. Then the unthinkable happened; the GPS went blank. As my husband continued to try to get the GPS to work, my anxiety level steadily increased. I am fanatic about being on time and being late this evening was, to me, deplorable. As my husband worked, I texted friends we were meeting at the event to tell them what was going on.

Eventually, my husband looked at me and said, “It’s just not working.” I was absolutely speechless, as I had never seen a GPS go blank before. And, while I had been to our destination before, navigating there without a GPS was unthinkable. At my husband’s suggestion I called my step-son from my cell phone, even though we were still sitting on our driveway, and asked him to bring out his GPS out from the house to us. Happily, his GPS worked and we were soon on our way.

While we did arrive late to the event, gladly we were not as late as anticipated, and arrived on time for the most important portion of the evening. And it was an absolutely wonderful event. But, as I recounted the reason for our tardiness to others who were there, we could not resist commenting on our complete dependence on technology and my refusal to rely on my own sense of direction.

Are you as dependent on your technology as we are on ours?