Silly Machines. Darn Murphy Anyway.

Note -- this post accidentally published on August 7, out of order. If you begin reading it and find out you have already read it, I apologize, but because of the references to "yesterday's post" contained in this entry, I am re-publishing it in the correct order. Also, if you have previously read the post below, please be sure to check back to August 7 and see if you missed the introduction to Houdini the Cat, which also published that day.


So after I published yesterday's post, I got to thinking that I had missed making a really important point. I had meant to ask you guys what you thought the odds were that the old GPS would show up, now that we finally have a new one. What do you think, a week? A month?

I'm sure it will show up eventually. Things like this often do. (I'm still not comfortable with that "stolen" theory.) Remember waaaaayyy back in the beginning of this blog (see post in May entitled, "No, Seriously.... Why?") when I described those sippy cups I bought that had a bunch of cups, a bunch of straws, and exactly one lid? Well, the day finally came. I lost the lid yesterday morning. Actually, I lost an entire cup. I gave it to Toddler in the park, and I thought I brought it home (pretty darn sure), but it was nowhere to be found in the morning. I searched the car, the fridge, the dishwasher, the cabinet ... nothing. Nowhere. So I had no straw cup to give Toddler yesterday.

Since it was raining and the pool was out, we opted for shopping. The first stop was at Target to find more sippy cups. This time I examined the cups closely. It seems I owe a partial apology to the Take and Toss Company for slamming their product for being packaged with only one lid. All of the sets on the shelves had as many lids as cups, just like the spout packages did. I did notice, though, that all but the bottom lid were pretty darn easy to dislodge from the packaging, and if they were ... say ... sitting in a bin on sale at a children's store like when I first found them, I could easily see how all but one of the lids would fall out.

So, Take and Toss manufacturer, I apologize for making fun of you for only including one lid per set of cups. Instead, I would like to make fun of you for not packaging the set sufficiently enough that the lids actually STAY with the cups during ordinary store handling.

Anyway, I digress. We buy the cups, come home, and sure enough, that evening I found the missing cup and lid under Toddler's chair, where he apparently abandoned or stored it. I am willing to bet that if I didn't buy any replacements, we would still be looking for it. So I ask again ... how long before our old GPS shows up now?

Well, whenever it gets here, it will have a home. In the meantime, we are breaking in the new one. (And I do mean breaking in. This is going to take some practice.) I am tentatively proud to say that I made it the whole way to Toddler's appointment in the middle of downtown this morning without making any wrong turn, for the very first time ever. At least, I don't think I made any mistakes. There was this incident, though ..... Basically, the GPS told me to bear to the right, which I did. Everything is fine. It says nothing else, but after several blocks it suddenly says, "Calculating Route. When possible, make a legal u-turn, followed by a hard right." So, basically, I'm going about 90 degrees the wrong way, and as the roads diverge, it will soon become closer to 180 degrees. But wait, I know the hospital is ahead of me. Then, a few seconds later, the GPS says, "Destination ahead on the left." Umm ... huh? I didn't move! Oddly enough, the hospital ended up being two streets over, on my RIGHT, not my left, but I still kept going the way I thought was right, and I made it without any turning around. Success!!!!!

I think the GPS just needs a little practice. I mean, after all, the hospital is a hard place to find. In the next day or so I will tell you a little bit more about the hazards of modern technology use in automobiles, but for today, I am just glad we got there and got home and no one is too much worse for the wear.