Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Use a map, please!

Gone are the days when finding directions to some place involved lengthy phonecalls and lots of obscure instructions. The ease/difficulty of finding a place depended on the guy giving the instructions. Since the advent of free GPS, digital maps have never been easier to use. One would think people would have changed the way they give others directions, but noooo! They still do something like this;

"At the main road, turn off at the brown building called Pink House. There is a murram road that goes inside (oba inside where?). Follow that road until you find a junction. Just continue straight and gooooo.... Until you reach a cobra under a mango tree..."

Eh, alo, first wait! You have a resident cobra in the neighbourhood? Why would you be directing me to the den of nature's grim reaper? Have I told you that I'm coming to demand money? Because that's not the reason I'm coming to check on you. Neither am I bringing your landlord with me. Why do you wish harm on me? Oba is it one of those enchanted serpents that will ask me a riddle and if I fail, will condemn me to a fate so painful my grandchildren will grow up wailing?

"No, I mean cobra, the one of shoes."

What difference does it make? You mean the one out of whose skin they make shoes is less dangerous?

"I mean cobra, the man who repairs shoes."

Eh... Alright, go on..

"Anhaa... So, when you reach the mango tree, there is a road that goes up and another one that goes down. Take the one that goes down. Make sure you jump 3 gates..."

Uh.. O...kay!

"And then when you reach the fourth gate, which is black, you know you have gone too far. Turn back and head towards the 3rd gate that you jumped. My place does not have a gate, but it is between those gates."

Aside from imagining what service providers go through to reach such places, I'm grateful for the future. You will find it hard to believe how accurate GPS-aided maps are. All someone does is drop a 'pin' at the desired location and send it to the journeyman. Unless he's dumb as a pile of rocks, he should find the place with minimal difficulty. Of course he'd make a call or two to make sure he's on the right track, but it's a lot easier. Then again, you don't have to be dumb to get lost. Even a loose grasp of common sense will do. So I ask the guy to just drop a pin instead, and I'll use a map app to find him.

"So, you want to look for a needle in a haystack instead of following my simple directions?!"


3 comments:

  1. Hahahahahaha, this is epic man. I was that guy swallowing his laughter lest his workmates shoot him strange looks. The cobra!! hehehe

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