AUDIO MAPS
★★★★★ (2 out of 5)
Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing audio maps.
If you’ve ever found an abandoned car in the middle of the woods, it was probably mine. I have trouble saying goodbye to things, and when a car gets too old I can never bring myself to sell it, and dismantling a car is a lot of work, so I drive it somewhere secluded, put it in park, syphon out any extra gas, and don’t look back.
When I was recently getting rid of another car, I had my nephew drive me back from a spot I could never find again. His car has a new feature called an audio map, where a woman’s voice tells you where to turn. It’s like a taxi driver, but one where you have to do all the work.
It makes getting lost almost impossible, which a lot of people will appreciate. However, for more adventurous types like myself, it means a boring drive that requires no thought. Some of my most exciting life experiences have been the result of getting lost. Like the time I took a boat tour and the captain died, leaving me to drift for weeks with a corpse. When the boat finally reached an island, I buried Alan’s dessicated remains at the beach. It turned out to not be an island, but someone’s backyard, because I’d forgotten we were touring Lake Ontario.
If there had been an audio map on that boat, I never would have had such a story to tell. However, audio maps can shave weeks off your travel time. And they can prevent murder charges.
An audio map may be better for someone who is traveling alone, because it’s like a friend who isn’t very warm, but still better than no friend at all. When you already have a travel companion, audio maps make it difficult to have a conversation because they keep interrupting you.
I looked under the dashboard to try and find the manufacturing sticker for whoever made the audio map but I couldn’t find one. It’s probably made by Google because they make most things. Except for refrigerators. I asked the woman at Sears where I could find a Google refrigerator but she had no idea. Google should make a refrigerator with a search option on the outside so I don’t have to stand there with the door open looking for the peanut butter.
As technology advances, I imagine audio maps will be able to send directions into a special hat the driver wears so the whole car doesn’t have to listen to it.
Please join me next week when I’ll be reviewing Mandy Moore.
