Just a fun forward...

Thanks to Rita DG for passing this along.

"Sheila's Reality Check"
(Sheila Wray Gregoire)
"Asking for Directions"
May 25, 2007
I bought my husband a new toy for his birthday. My daughters named her Sylvia.
Sylvia is a no-nonsense gal who tells you where to go in the most exact terms. She is a GPS unit for your car where you can enter in your desired address, and she tells you how to get there. Or, if you’re in a strange city and you have a hankering for Chinese, she’ll tell you where the closest buffet is. She’s really very smart.
Nevertheless, I sometimes question her gender. Sure Sylvia sounds like a woman, but she thinks like a man. Sylvia, when she is giving directions, says something like this: “Go straight for 12.8 km, then turn right. Destination is on the left”. That’s how a man would give directions.
A woman, on the other hand, would say, “Head past the Foxboro IGA, and then just keep going. The road will wind a little bit, but don’t worry. You’ll pass the cutest little horse farm on your right hand side, and not too long after that a really pretty old church that’s been converted into an antique shop. Take the next left. You’ll pass three mailboxes—the last one is green with a little rooster on top—and then we’re the next house on the left.” Women, you see, give directions based on social landmarks. Men give it based on silly things like magnetic north. But Sylvia doesn’t know anything about roosters and mailboxes. She just knows directions.
That, of course, is something my husband believes I know nothing of. Early in our marriage, Keith swears that one time, when looking at a map, I said, “go straight on this red road until you come to the purple road,” but I don’t remember that. What I do remember is saying something like, “I think you take the next left,” and having Keith spit out, “do you think, or do you know?” Spluttering, I replied, “I think I know.” It wasn’t a good scene.
I decided nonetheless that my marriage was worth saving, so Sylvia was a wise purchase. I think, however, that Sylvia could use some caffeine. She’s far too staid. You can set her for either North American English or British English, or any number of other languages. We’ve learned, for instance, that “Hojre pa Haig Road” means “turn onto Haig Road” in Norwegian, and you never know when that might come in handy. But I still think they need a redneck setting with a smoker’s cough. “Yer ginna wanna hang a left after the beer store,” for example. At least that has some personality. Sylvia really doesn’t. If she tells you turn right, and you go straight, within a few seconds she says, “Recalculating”, and finds you an alternate route.
It would be ever so much more interesting if she were to say, “Okay, fine, don’t listen to me,” and then wait a minute before giving new directions so that you would have to sweat a little. That’s more like real life.
My husband likes to play a game called “outwitting Sylvia”, because half the time he’s sure he knows a shortcut that she doesn’t. When we’re driving around our hometown, he hardly ever listens to her. He just tunes her out, and when he does listen, he laughs. “Sylvia, you’re out of your gourd! Highway 2 is much faster.” I have always believed him, and I have adopted his shortcuts as my own. But I’m starting to have my doubts. If Sylvia thinks that’s the wrong way to go, and Sylvia knows everything, who’s to say that Sylvia is wrong? Next time I’m heading out of town, I just might listen to her instead. She’s really become part of the family.
Keith likes to say that he now has four women telling him what to do, instead of just three, but he’s adjusting well. And that’s why they must have made the voice a woman’s. No man is going to take directions from another guy. So Sylvia stays, fights are fewer, and we actually get where we’re going. Sometimes technology really is a wonderful thing.