Remember what it was like before you had a cell phone and people around you were complaining about their cell phones and "not having coverage"? How to you it was all space-aged Gobbledygook?

(And if you still don't have a cell phone, do you remember yesterday?)

Well I kind of feel that way about GPS devices. You know, the Garmins, Tom Toms, PN-40 Handhelds (oh DeLorme and your clever names).

Two weeks ago my folks drove down to Florida (are they still "Snow Birds" if they don't fly?). Their GPS is the kind where you load maps onto an SD card, and somehow on this trip Forida wasn't on their machine, either they forgot or ran out of room. Either way, when they left Georgia they entered a gray no man's land. The GPS knew that they were still traveling in a southerly direction, was still keeping track of latitudes and longitudes and whatnot, but had no idea of on what road or terraine.

Luckily my father is a clever guy, so he knew where he was going. Drive south. When you hit Mickey Mouse, turn left. Then stop before you get to the ocean. Voila!

My cousin's husband (cousin-in-law?) was less lucky - on his cross-country trip last week his brother/navigator broke the touch-screen of their GPS. Uh-oh. A touch-screen GPS with a broken touch-screen is an expensive paperweight. But useful in weighing down the maps when you open the windows to pay tolls.

Similarly, before I had a cell phone I was much more organized - make a plan before I leave the house, know where we're meeting and at what time, etc.

Today I make sure to print out Google Map directions before I leave. Sure, I have a Maine Gazetteer, but somehow no matter where I'm going it always ends up on the crease in the binding.

So when my wife's aunt (my aunt-in-law?) and her ... well, they're not really married but they've been together for quite some time, and heck, he's more an uncle to me than one of my real uncles ... so let's say "our aunt and uncle" ... went to Southern California in January I didn't even think to suggest getting a GPS.

I was already planning what maps to print out, and wondering where the Thomas Guide from my Southern California days ended up (I imagine in a box in my parents' garage, my brother's basement or my in-law's garage, you know, where it seems 80% of our stuff has been for damn-near three years now, not that I'm bitter). But then one of my aunt-in-law's coworkers suggested a GPS, which they bought and loved and never got lost with.

So what's my point? I guess it falls along the line's of Clarke's third law - that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. That to me a GPS unit is just space-aged Gobbledygook, much like cell phones were to me six years ago.