The Other Woman

There’s another woman living in our truck with me and Mr. Trucker. She keeps hidden pretty well, and I have yet to catch a glimpse of her, but I hear her all the time, competing for Mr. Trucker’s attention. We’ll be driving down the highway (fat, dumb, and happy, as Mr. T. always says), and I’ll be in the middle of telling him a story and all of a sudden she’ll interrupt with some rude comment like, “in point six miles, turn left”. She doesn’t ever ask permission to speak, or say “excuse me”, or anything like that. Just talks right over the top of whatever I’m saying. And she’s so persistent. She keeps repeating the same thing over and over, like she thinks we’re deaf, or stupid, or something. She’s always trying to tell Mr. Trucker where to go, and if he ignores her, she’ll just try that much harder, giving him gentle persuasive suggestions like, “make a U-turn, make a U-turn...”. 

She always remains patient and calm, even when Mr. Trucker doesn’t do what she says, which is pretty often. I could never be that patient. Do you think she’ll win him over? 

Of course I’m talking about the GPS girl, that disembodied voice in the satellite navigation system. I call her the Bimbo, and sometimes I just can’t stifle the urge to tell her to “Shut Up already, I’m talking!” Mr. Trucker bought a car GPS from some guy in a black trench coat at a dark truck stop (I’m making up the part about the black trench coat), rather than a truck GPS, and consequently the Bimbo has a tendency to try to guide him on routes that an 18 wheeler cannot take. This is the reason why he ignores her so frequently. Whenever he does, she says “Recalculating” and tries her darnedest to get him back on the route she first suggested, wheedling, and cajoling, and giving him alternate directions until finally she gives up and gets with the program. 

One time last year, before I went out with Mr. Trucker, I was talking to him on the phone and could hear the Bimbo in the background (or should I say foreground), working her womanly wiles but remaining calm and patient as he drove his own way. I asked him, “does she ever lose her temper when you don’t follow her directions?”, to which he replied, “Yeah, one time she said to me: “your wife has a boyfriend, you know, and he’s a MUCH better driver than you are!’”.

Sometime I’ll tell you about the THIRD woman in our truck, the Qualcomm lady...