Here There Be Dragons

So last week I got my new Blackberry Flip phone, and as I’ve been figuring out what all the different buttons do, my husband has been helping me find cool applications to download. I’ve pretty much been on board with things like Facebook and Google, but then one day our honeymoon period came to an abrupt end as my husband excitedly told me, “Just wait until I show you this cool program called ‘Latitude’.” And then I began to whimper.

Now it’s not that my husband’s love of all things map-related suddenly came as a big surprise to me. I’ve known all about that since the early days of our relationship. As a matter of fact, I vividly remember one evening back when he and I had just started dating when, after a nice family dinner, he and his dad pulled out a couple of atlases and began to investigate them closely. I sat and watched for while as they carefully planned out routes from Butte, Montana to Salt Lake City, Utah, thinking that perhaps they were making plans for an upcoming trip.

But as the plotting continued between more and more random cities, cities that they could not possibly ever need to visit, it suddenly dawned on me that THIS WAS THE EVENING’S ENTERTAINMENT. And that my husband and his dad were actually competing to see who could come up with the best theoretical route to get from theoretical city one to theoretical city two. And then I cried a little.

And of course, mere words cannot describe the love he has in his heart for Google Earth. So since I won’t even go NEAR his office if there’s any possibility that this program is in use, he’s forever calling up his dad and having conversations like this:

My Husband: “Hey. You know that house we lived in when I was five? Well I’m looking at it on satellite view right now. And you know that tree we had in the front yard? Yeah, they cut it down.”

By the same token, I should also add that the extent to which I break out in hives whenever I have to deal with maps and directions is also NOT ANYTHING NEW. So I was kind of worried that maybe my husband had suffered some sort of traumatic brain injury while I wasn’t looking, and then consequently had forgotten who I am, when he offered to install what sounded suspiciously like an application devoted to the love of maps on my phone.

I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but ever since I got sick I have completely lost all ability to pretend about my feelings. And what I was feeling now was, “Noooo0000!”

But it actually turned out to be kind of cool, something about GPS and being able to tell where the other person is at any moment. And I’m not at all thinking that the installation of this application has Anything Whatsoever  to do with the spy shows we’ve been watching lately, like “Chuck” and “MI-5”.

Although, I’m always at home these days. So it’s not like it’s really difficult to find me. And if anyone ever did have to spy on me I would feel really bad for them, because this would be The Most Boring Assignment In The Entire History Of Intelligence Work:

“Subject is wearing same green pajamas for the 87th day in a row. Dear God, please KILL ME NOW!”

So the next time you and your loved ones pull out your atlases to plan your theoretical trips, be on the lookout for the symbol on the map marking our house which indicates that, “cranky, frequenly homebound, crazy-cat lady lives HERE”. For best results, and for the winning entry in The Best Theoretical Navigational Route Competition, just go ahead and plan to pass us right on by.