“Take next left” Jill, the voice of
the Global Positioning System said
loud and clear. I pressed the brake
at the stop sign, glanced around at the
run-down shacks and barns and was
suddenly unsure of Jill’s
trustworthiness.

“The destination is ahead on your right.”
Wrong, she had to be wrong.
Belmont University, the
on its way to be Ivy League
while easily putting students in
hundreds of thousands of
dollars in debt, college that
my cousin Kenny attended,
could not be in the middle of
backwoods Tennessee.

“Leave your message at the tone…”
Kenny’s voicemail repeated in my ear
for the millionth time, just as I saw the
dead end sign.
I found myself repenting for
trusting a machine to lead me into
another state, to a place I’d never been,
trusting a fake British voice to guide
me to safety. Why did I have so much
faith in modern technology? Could I not
be satisfied with the simple, old-fashioned
methods of finding my way?

I should have just used Mapquest.

03/26/2009

Author's Note: for my narrative poetry class.

Posted on 03/26/2009
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