ROAD PROBLEMS

[boxcarOkie]

I am sitting at the crossroads, staring at the signs, more or less wondering how it was that I got to be where I think I am, but not all that sure where it is, that I are, 'cause it isn't where I imagined I wanted to be.  Reach behind my seat and fish out a very old wrinkled map of Oklahoma, haven't used this in awhile, I think to myself.

The bus is smoking.  It has been smoking for quite some time, and frankly, I do not care for that too much.  Then there is this groaning thing that I hear when I am rolling up to a stop sign.  A kind of sound like Arrrrrrrrrrrgahroannnnnnnnnnnnnnn or something like that, as if some prehistoric beast has come to the neighborhood. 

Men and women, grab your children and hide.

That one pesky gauge over there to the right, it is flickering again.  Almost similar to what your eyes do while engrossed in reading a Steven King Novel or a reference guide on Allison Transmissions and you are getting tired.

So I take a deep breath, I suck it in through my nose and let it exhale thru my throat, very slowly.  I close my eyes and do my best to find my happy place in life.  I am a pretty fair mechanic I can and will solve these problems.

The smoke is no big deal, it will go away after a hundred miles or so, it has been sitting all winter long, it will clear up.  The groaning will disappear, it always does.  Might be some fluid buildup on the shoes and/or drums, but it surely isn't getting fixed here, not today it isn't.

Gauge flickering, what can I say?  Thirty-six year old bus, has to be a bad ground.  Locate the small flashlight, and head out, NBD, no big deal (Okie Technical Term).

Looking down at the map and my heart kind of sinks.  I now know my geographical location in life, I am aware of where it is, that I want to be.  I am not lost, was powerfully confused for a little bit, but things are almost right. 

But then again, there is the matter of .... THE MAP.

If I could just figure out a way to re-fold this stinking @#@**^!!*^% map back into its original shape, I would be ready to go.

Watch those right-handers,

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[luvrbus]

LOL Don that is why I use a Walmart Atlas,how is everything on the goat farm any terrorist hanging around if so protect the goats    

[oldmansax]

My pinnacle achievement as a professional truck driver was to be able to fold the map back correctly.



TOM

[bobofthenorth]

Yet another reason to use computerized technological guidance systems. 

[luvrbus]

One nice thing about a map it doesn't talk back sometimes the co-pilot reading it will but most of us are a custom to that anyway 

[34kw]

I like your perspective. Don't sweat the small stuff. And it's all small stuff.

[Boomer]

I remember coming into L.A. when I was a kid, 3:AM, dome light on, steering with my knees, trying to find a delivery address on a street map.  Hell, now I don't even drive at night and if I did probably couldn't even read the gauges.  Took a wrong turn one night and finally figured out I was in Watts.  Kinda dark down there.
Now we have Bitchin' Betty on the GPS to tell us where to go.  Know what you mean about the crinkly maps, BCO, well said.

[DKO]

I have a Garmin GPS and it offers several voice options. I have the man from England giving me directions. Sometimes the voice seems pretty frustrated when it is telling me to make the first available U-turn and has recalculated 10 times in the last 45 seconds. I just find it is easier on my nerves to have a man yelling at me. My lovely wife "gets it" and loves to hear me tell that.

I actually earned some kind of badge as a Cub Scout and it involved marking the route and stops and times on all the state maps on a vacation I took with my family. I don't know if it was my Dad or the den mother that insisted the maps were folded correctly but I leaned to fold every state map from Ohio to Florida.

I sometimes wonder when I am trying to fold a state map now if I should hunt that badge down and turn it back in.

Davy

[Jon]

Boomer, the last time I heard the phrase Bitching Betty was in the cockpit of an MD-11 as she called out height above the ground. At 40 feet the flare was begun.

Any chance that is where you gave her the moniker?

[Oonrahnjay]

Boomer, the last time I heard the phrase Bitching Betty was in the cockpit of an MD-11 as she called out height above the ground. At 40 feet the flare was begun.

Any chance that is where you gave her the moniker?

   It's Maggie in my Magellan that's giving me advice that I usually don't need.  (And, for some of us, 40 feet is cruise altitude ...)

[luvrbus]

 Don't you love it when you can see the exit you are looking for and she has been telling you for the past 5 miles "turn around soon as possible" or you can see a WalMart off to right and she is trying her best to direct you to a dead end road

[Dave5Cs]

Our county roads out here sometime just have letters or a combination. We have one that is "PFE road" She says it like its a word. It sounds like she FROAD. We crack up but know what shes is saying now!.....LOL