Sat Nav to the Rescue

We realize now that all the exits off the scenic parkway have similar looking, unobtrusive tourist signs, not INTERSTATE 40 LEADING BACK TO YOUR TRAILER signs, so we didn’t think too much of it when at the bottom of the (wrong) exit ramp it looked a little different than we remembered and we couldn’t turn left as we both thought we should. Jimmy simply turned right and then executed one of his customary U-turns (first perfected over solid lines on a bridge in Toulouse, France where he was stopped by two scarily-clad-in-black-leather French motorcycle cops). After ten minutes of suburban touring along a five lane road with big chain stores looming over us, he finally said, “This doesn’t look familiar, does it?”

Compass (Photo credit: Roland Urbanek)

No, it didn’t look familiar and a quick glance at the compass prompted me to say, “We’re going south-west. I would have thought we should be going north-east.” I might just as well have spoken Japanese to him. For a man with a good sense of direction and the ability to find places by following his nose, he has never gotten his head ‘round the points of the compass. And we needed a town plan, not the state map that I clutched on my lap as a security blanket.

After shooting me a look of incomprehension, Jimmy suggested trying the sat nav. We pulled off the road into a strip mall parking lot, fumbled around under the seats, in the door pockets and finally in the glove compartment for the sat nav disk, dusted it off for its first outing in two years and popped it into the radio. The only instruction on the screen was to read the manual . . . which was in French. (Ha, ha, ha. So Teddy, the car salesman, had the last laugh. When we bought the car, he had tried to sell us the disk “at a really good price” but we had refused to pay for it as the car had been advertised with a sat nav and we contended that it wasn’t much good without a disk. Teddy magicked the disk out of the used car lot and the manual came from . . . . France?)

At a loss as to what to do next, we did what anyone in a similar situation would do and started jabbing the sat nav screen and swearing.

“What’s the ****** address where we are staying?”

“I don’t know. The zip code is 28778.” But of course that would be too easy. We couldn’t find anywhere to enter a simple five digit code. “Try Swannanoa, the suburb of Asheville where the campsite is.” The computer screen wouldn’t accept the second  “n” in Swannanoa. It blanked it out.  “Try Patton Cove Road. That’s near enough.” After the first few letters the computer suggested Patton Camp, Patton Hill, Patton Hollow and Patton School but wouldn’t allow Patton Cove as an entry. Jimmy jabbed back, back, back.

Swannanoa River at Asheville, North Carolina. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“There. Look. Phone number. Try that,” I blurted, my desire to articulate now gone. The sat nav wouldn’t accept the 800 free phone number I had looked up in the camping directory which came as no surprise as we were trying to pinpoint a location with it.

“Put the interstate in.” After much heated discussion as to whether it was I40, I-40 or I_40, the in-car computer refused to accept any variation of Interstate 40, faltering at the “0”.

“Here’s a phone number for the RV dealer next door to us! Try that!” I exclaimed triumphantly. The area code and first five digits of the phone number went in a treat but the contrary computer refused the last two digits. After three aborted tries, I snapped at Jimmy, “Oh put anything in for the last two digits. See what it comes up with.” We then had directions to First Presbyterian Church.

From memory of the directions we’d followed originally to the campsite the church was near where we wanted to go. Guidance Gertie now helpfully instructed us in her slow parlance for lost dummies, “Move out onto the indicated highway and verbal instructions will begin.” (Kind of sad and a little creepy that I’ve named the sat nav.)

“Well if we knew which highway to get on and in which direction, we wouldn’t be asking you, would we?” I yelled at Gert. Somehow it seemed slightly less

We weren’t this far off course. it just seemed like it at the time.

deranged to bellow at a talking computer that couldn’t hear me, than my usual state of affairs – at a silent computer that couldn’t hear me.

As Jimmy pulled out of the parking lot onto the highway in the opposite direction to which we had been traveling, I glanced at the compass. It said NW.  “Yes!” and I punched the air gleefully.

“Proceed along the indicated road for five miles,” Gertie told us.

“Let’s see if she takes us to the church, shall we?” I suggested.

“I was intending to,” said a newly confident Jimmy. And she did. And she took us to Swannanoa with two n’s along I-40 with a zero and straight down Patton Cove Road past our campsite.

Can you find your way around with technology or is there some IT disconnect in just our brains?

How Not to Buy a Car – Part 1

Pumped with excitement at buying a car in our new country, Jimmy phoned. “I found the one!”

ChevyTahoe2007 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“What color is it?”

“You’re such a girl.”

“Well?”

“It’s grey.”

“Oh.” I guess I should have asked about the model, the year, the engine size and the accessories.

“You can see what you think of the salesman, Teddy, next week.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll see.”

When we arrived into a sea of Chevys, Teddy, handsome in his Labrador-eyed, toothy way, grasped me warmly by the hand and hauled me onto my feet. “HI! I’m Teddy! You must be Carol! Would you like to see your new car?!” He grinned and bounced a bit. If he had a tail, it would have been wagging furiously.

In the showroom, Teddy lounged back proprietarily in his chair, hands behind his head, elbows up, feet up, chewing gum visibly but when he was gone a series of people raided the desk drawers. Teddy didn’t even have his own desk.

When he arrived back, I was surprised to see on a page of scribbles that the price of the car was $3,000 more than Jimmy had told me. “Were you aware that the price you agreed didn’t include tax?” I whispered.

“Yes,” Jimmy bluffed for the benefit of the salesman. I should have reminded Jimmy that, unlike in Britain where sales tax is included in the ticket price, it is always added on at the point of purchase in the U.S. as a nasty aftershock. It’s not so grave when the extra amount is $3 but $3,000, well; we were both a bit nonplussed.

Then expected to sign away thousands of dollars, give or take as Teddy put it, I asked “What do you mean give or take?”

“Well my math isn’t real good so I’ve guessed tax and licensing fees at 10%.” Jimmy and I exchanged looks of amazement and horror. Not only was Teddy guessing at a high ticket price, he was expecting payment in full.

Teddy Bear (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“You realise I’m not paying for the car today,” Jimmy told Teddy and Teddy blinked blankly at him. “I told you yesterday on the phone that my funds haven’t come through from the U.K. yet.” No signs of comprehension yet from Teddy. “I’m here to put a deposit on the car.” Teddy smiled benignly at Jimmy. “How much deposit would you like?”

Teddy snapped out of his trance, “How much would you like to put down?”

“Well, how much would you like to put down?” Teddy was out of his depth again.

“How about 10 per cent?” This added more confusion so Teddy hoofed it for 10 minutes to get help with his numbers and then returned, pushing more doodles at us.

“You want me to sign this?” I asked Jimmy, dumbfounded. He shrugged. I signed. Teddy swept up the hand scrawled page of numbers and stopped chewing long enough to grin broadly at us as he whisked it off to the finance office. “I’m not comfortable spending several thousand dollars with a man who can’t add up,” I said.

“Nor am I.”

“What do you want to do?” But Teddy was back and explained that we were waiting for the finance officer.

Jimmy took the opportunity to try to conclude other issues, “You’ll give us the handbook for the car and the disk for the sat nav.”

“I’ll find you a handbook and I’ll give you a good price on the disk.”

“The car was advertised with sat nav so it should come with the disk.”

“I already know all that, Teddy.”

“I’ll see if I can get it for you at cost.”

“NO!’ we chorused.

Teddy sprang out of his chair and out of the door like a puppy after a stick. “He’s going to try to pinch one out of another car,” Jimmy surmised. Sure enough Teddy reappeared with a DVD box in his hand and promptly disappeared into the manager’s office.

“I’m really uncomfortable with all this,” I told Jimmy.

“If he messes me about any more I’m going to walk,” Jimmy spat.

“Shouldn’t we be talking to the sales manager?”

“Have you seen him?” Jimmy asked incredulously.

I turned to see a lumberjack trudge past. “You can’t mean that man with the walrus moustache, flannel shirt, torn jeans and cap with ear flaps.”

“Yep.”

“Oh boy,” I said, not as in OH BOY! but as in oh help.

We were both gripping the arms of our chairs ready to bolt for the door – angry, cold, frustrated and heads fizzing with the raucous inane showroom TV when the finance manager appeared. He was well spoken, clean shaven, wearing a white shirt and a tie and led us into his professional looking office. He quickly took us through all the details of our purchase, came up with an exact price, then congratulated us on our new car and extracted a check for the deposit from Jimmy.

You didn’t really think that was the end of the story did you? Oh no . . . . . to be continued.

Spoiler alert! We did eventually liberate the car from the dealer. It’s dark gray I’m told. Looks blue to me. Nice, don’t you think?