ENTERING THE 21ST CENTURY

On our recent weekend trip to San Francisco, I told my husband that I had not officially entered the 21st century. After we arrived at the SF airport, we boarded the airtrain to go to the rental car place. The airtrain had no driver and it had an automated woman's voice that told you when the doors were closing, when to hold on, and what terminal or place you were approaching. When we got to the rental car place, we did not have to stand in line, but went to a signboard, found our name - which told the number of the parking space our rental car was in and we went directly to our car and got in. When we got in, my husband realized he had not rented a car with a GPS, and since he thought it would come in handy in the SF area, decided to go in to the counter and switch that car for one with a GPS. The GPS was extremely handy finding where to go in SF. Once again, it was a woman's automated voice. She told us what lane to get in, and how far it was to the next turn. If my husband was speeding too much (ie. going too fast on an exit ramp) the directions would come too slow. When we got to our destination, she would declare: "You have arrived!" One time, I guess we were going too slow, she announced, "You have arrived" while we were in the middle of an intersection and so we actually drove on past the sports store we were looking for. As soon as we had passed it, she announced, "Recaculating route" and proceeded to give us directions on how to get back to the store. It was pretty cool! If she told you to make a certain turn, right as you were coming onto the place where you were to turn, a chime would ding to let you know that was it. After we got back home, we were going somewhere. I was telling my husband how to get to this certain place and told him to turn. When he turned he said, 'You forgot to ding".