I hate maps.  My husband cares but I don’t.  I’m of no use to him while driving so he has to do it all.  Mostly I dislike the ones just getting me from point A to point B, say the ones in my own neighborhood or pointing me to a new place from my current location.  Those maps are lost on me.

Alex asks, “What are those? Oh, I get it, it’s a collection.”

I was born this way with no reason to learn to like maps.  My dad was the navigator in the family.  He trained on WWII Navy airplanes so he was a shoe-in for a car.  If we went on a family trip, he mapped out where to go on AAA state maps, sometimes two or three if we drove across borders.  He traced the way using a Cross retractable ballpoint pen and off we went, following his blue path on a paper map.  The only role his family of seven played was the constant, “When are we going to get there?”  My siblings and I measured trips in minutes and Archie comic books.  We were crammed into a 1964 navy blue Ford station wagon headed to a relative’s and rarely a hotel, too expensive.

The only paper map I remember reading was back in 1998.  My boss and I were driving to our new HQ in Atlanta, fresh off the plane from San Francisco.  We were on the highway known as The Perimeter or the Autobahn of the South.  I was the navigator.  No matter how much I unfolded and unfolded and unfolded the map, filling our compact rental with directions to everywhere but where we needed to go, I couldn’t find HQ.  This was only the beginning of a not-so-successful relationship with my boss.  I quit.  (I didn’t want to move to Atlanta anyway; I didn’t know my way around.)

Aren’t gas stations always on the corner?

In pre-Google times, directions were simple for short distances.  If I wanted to go to a friend’s house or a restaurant, I got verbal directions I wrote down on a scrap of paper.  I got the local’s perspective about turning right at the third light with the corner gas station.  I was told if I found myself at a McDonald’s, I had gone too far.  “Look for the house with the purple door, mine is next to it.”  No map required; I followed the landmarks.

As Google took over more of the world, people relied on digital directions.  Google Maps App was on every phone and I avoided it as long as possible.  I still hate maps like I still hate peas.  It’s never going to happen, maps and me.  Only a complete stranger could force me to open my map app.

I was standing in front of a restaurant in Palo Alto a year ago fall.  I found a tasty-looking bistro by walking around on University Ave. looking for a place to eat while the hubby parked the car.  I was on my cell phone, giving him the address when I realized I didn’t know the name of the cross street.  I called out to the crowd, “Hey!  Does anyone know the cross street?”   Nobody knew but one guy tried to help.  “You know you have a map right on your phone.”  His pointer finger found its way to activate the app.  The bleepin’ blue dot showed up and zoomed in on my location at about the time I walked the 50 feet to the corner street sign.  My husband’s response, “That’s so Silicon Valley.”

Eventually I got savvy.  I “Googled” my destination on my computer.  I can get step-by-step directions, just like I like ‘em and a map, which I completely ignore.  Google catered to people like me, outside the app.  I could email myself the directions and quickly read them from my car, while I was driving, just like the scrap-of-paper days.  I can enlarge the print on my phone so I can grasp quickly where to go.  My kids can read it to me.  Then Google tried to improve their service, in a selfish way.

No zoom-in needed.

Last week I researched directions to Napa in my usual fashion, emailing step-by-step.  I did it the night before so I would be ready to go in the morning.  Minutes before departure, I opened up the email to have all my directions at my fingers tips on my smartphone.  The email contained ONLY a link to THE MAP!!!!  No words!!!!  Apparently, Google will provide step-by-step directions but it is up to the user to copy and paste into an email.  (They downsized, one too many computers eating up company profits doing a job a user could do on their own dime.) Copy & Paste doesn’t format well to smartphones so it is impossible to read.  I’m furious and I’m late.

Techie Guy, my husband, tried to help.  He’s downloading the talking Google Map app to my phone.  I’m sweating because it means I have to figure out a new technology in two seconds.  I need backup.  I copy and paste the directions into a WORD document and print the darn thing out on OLD FASHIONED PAPER!  I’m armed with both, the talking map my husband calls, Goog-Lay and my 18-point font, three-page printed directions.  Goog-Lay did not start talking to me until I arrived at my destination and left again.  At such time, Goog-Lay realized I was going off course and wanted me to stick to the program, stay put.  Besides giving me directions an hour late, Goog-Lay ate up the power in my phone.  No wonder it was soo quiet the entire drive to Napa.

I have since returned to my old friend MapQuest, providing directions like a person.  Sometimes a little too detailed like, “Turn left on 9^th Street.  It’s after 8^th.  If you get to 10^th, you’ve gone too far.”  I’d rather TMI in words than a digital map with too many highways and not enough visible streets, only a blue-haloed dot to light the way.  God help Google if I ever find my way down to HQ to give them a piece of my mind; let ’em know MapQuest sent me.