The Mystery Megapack

MapMaster will route us.”
    Drive one point seven miles south and turn right.
    Stephen tilted the MapMaster slightly in my direction so I could see the bright yellow display. He tapped the screen with his index finger. “Here’s our route in pink. That’s the interstate over there, in red,” he explained, as if I were a particularly slow and difficult child.
    Continue point five miles and take ramp right.
    Stephen flipped on his turn signal and eased the car onto the interstate. “It’s fantastic technology,” he beamed. “Uses the global positioning system. It gloms onto satellites, figures out where you are, then gives you driving directions.” He waved a hand. “It comes pre-programmed with hotels and restaurants, or you can put in a street address.…” His voice trailed off. “I’ve got it programmed for St. Margarets.”
    Drive four point one miles and exit right.
    I watched as Allen Parkway, our usual turnoff, receded in my side view mirror. “Why didn’t you turn back there, Stephen?”
    Stephen stared straight ahead, one hand resting lightly on top of the steering wheel. “I wanted to see where Marilyn would route us.”
    “Marilyn?”
    “MapMaster. M. M. Get it?”
    I rolled my eyes toward heaven. Where in the marriage vows did I promise to cherish a guy who names his toys after dead movie stars? I sighed. “Well, I can understand why, uh, Marilyn might be helpful if you’re driving in a strange city and don’t know where you’re going,” I grumbled. “But if you already know the way, why waste time fooling around?” I swiveled the screen toward me and studied the buttons: Find, Route, Menu.
    “Don’t mess with it, Marjorie Ann! You’ll screw up the settings.”
    “Okay, okay.” I raised both hands in self-defense. “I won’t touch your precious whatzit.” I folded my arms across my chest and settled into my seat, wishing I could turn on the radio, but I knew better. Stephen wouldn’t be able to hear MM over the sound of NPR.
    A few minutes later, MM chirped, In four hundred feet turn right.
    Stephen pulled off the expressway and, following MM’s instructions, wound through a public housing project and an industrial neighborhood until at last, by some miracle, we turned onto a street I recognized and I could see St. Margaret’s steeple directly ahead.
    Arriving at destination on right.
    “Well I’ll be darned,” I said.
    Stephen eased into the parking lot, switched off the ignition and grinned like a schoolboy. “Ain’t technology grand?”
    Even Reverend Nelson’s interminable sermon on life lessons to be learned from the parable of the Prodigal Son didn’t dampen Stephen’s enthusiasm. After the benediction, he hustled me out to the car, not even pausing on the chapel steps to shake the good Reverend’s meaty hand. “Toilet paper,” I reminded my husband somewhat breathlessly. “And milk.”
    Stephen drove the few blocks to our Whole Foods market and waited while I went into the store. When I returned to the parking lot carrying my purchases, Stephen demonstrated how to set a waypoint. “You just drive where you want to go, Marjorie Ann, and press the Mark button.” A number popped up on the screen. “Now you use this rocker pad to rename the waypoint. W … H … O … There. Whole Foods.” Looking over his shoulder, I noticed that Stephen had already set up waypoints for his office, Home Depot, Golds Gym, B&B Yachts and our home, of course. He punched the waypoint labeled “Home” and peeled out of the parking lot, tires squealing.
    Between Whole Foods and Home, the bypass around the construction site on Truman Street threw MM for a loop. Off route. Recalculating.
    “Why it’d do that?” I asked.
    “It’s a new road, Marjorie Ann. Marilyn doesn’t know about it.”
    MM dutifully recalculated and wanted us to go up Route 2 and take the Route 100 by-pass, but Stephen decided not to.
    Off route. Recalculating.
    The woman was far more patient with my husband than I was.
    As soon as possible, make a U-turn, she recommended politely.
    “You could make money,” I mused. “Designing special voices for this thing.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You can already select a language,” I said. “So why not come up with some alternate voice chips,” I suggested, “like the nagging wife. Instead of saying ‘off route, recalculating,’ she’d say, ‘You missed the turn, you idiot! But do you ever listen to me? Nooooh.’”
    The corner of