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A Brit and a Half Lost in OC  by Pat & Peter Betts

A Journey of Discovery, Memories and Comparisons

                                    THE BITCH IN THE BOX ©

I’ve always considered myself able to find my way around the UK with the aid of a fairly recent map and a first-class memory.  Even my highly critical wife, Pat says I must have studied ‘the knowledge’ because I dodge my way around London corners like a taxi driver.  It’s a talent.  But Pat, who admits to being geographically impaired, insisted that once we arrived in sunny Orange County, California I must buy a SatNav so we wouldn’t get lost.  It was only when we went to Palm Springs to visit a friend and I chose to take Highway 74, that she talked me into it.  How was I to know it wound through the mountains for stomach churning hours?

So with my human SatNav wife, we headed to the store where the satellite delight was duly purchased and installed in our car. Because the surface of the dashboard was pebbled, we had to fasten it to Pat’s overhead mirror. This technological wonder came with a somewhat human woman’s voice.  She sounded extraordinarily like my schoolteacher in the fourth form at Noel Park Primary. Pat’s daughter Lisa calls her the bitch in the box.

In preparation, I’d read up on the various products and learned that several road accidents have been attributed to SatNav misdirection.  One dark night in Exton, Hampshire in 2007 a woman driver following the bitch’s commands went through a railroad crossing not indicated in her system and was hit by a train.  After that, the County Council erected a sign warning drivers to ignore their SatNav system and take another route.  But on the bright side, that same year a man in Australia successfully overturned a speeding conviction when evidence from a GPS navigational track proved that he didn’t exceed the speed limit.  These days even some Golf Carts may have integrated GPS units tailored to certain golf courses, providing interactive course maps and instant readings of distance measurements to the green.  Pat, who never likes it if I exceed 60mph, told me with a hint of triumph in her voice that the system would alert me if I were driving above the speed limit - or in the direction to be 'caught' by radar detectors.  Was it a threat or a promise?

One system even gives you a choice of voices, mostly humorous but after listening to what sounded like an out-of-work actor lucky to get a voice-over doing a take-off on Woody Allen - I mean, would you really want him to get you where you were going?  Now Penelope Cruz would be different.  But I’m stuck with the bitch I’ve got, though she may not be able to pronounce some words such as Niguel (Nigell) and calls it Niggle, or Jeronimo Road, which she calls Jerro-Nimmo.  Mission Viejo (veeayeho) fares no better as Vee-Joe.  I thought we were doing all right and it wasn’t her fault that we got side-swiped on Golden Lantern at Pacific Coast Highway by an Aston Martin.  Did the driver’s SatNav tell her to run a red light?

Our friend Ray has a friend who lives in Irvine.  “You’ve got to look for a house there,” he advised from his multi-million pound home in Kensington, without suggesting an introduction to this fabled friend.  Not sure how rich Ray’s friend was or if Irvine had modestly priced properties, we decided to give it a look and then to take in nearby Costa Mesa.  Pat, eager to get her fingers into the act, punched in the directions for our trip with the bitch.  The route took us up the freeway to Irvine, side-swiped Costa Mesa and somehow ended up in San Clemente twenty miles away without ever getting off the freeway. “You have reached your destination,” came the cool report.

 It seemed Pat had stabbed in a multi-freeway trip with no stops. I decided to turn to a map for the rest of the journey, which thankfully brought us straight back to our little hotel in Dana Point.  We never did see Irvine.

The bitch and I were finally getting used to each other until the night she had a nervous breakdown.  “No, no!” she thundered out of her box.  “I said riiight on Jaeger Drive!  Now get ready for a U Turn.  Do a Uiee!  A Uiee...!”   The voice began to panic and I was about to attempt it when I saw it would take me over a cliff!

 As I screeched my brakes, the bitch yelled, “Turn right in 200 yards.  Left in a third of a mile! Straight ahead!  U turn! You turn!” Her voice rose as the instructions came faster and faster.  “Three hundred yards turn Left!  Turn right!  Straight ahead!  Are you listening?  I said a Youeeee!” shrieked the bitch. I was in a cold sweat.

Then I woke up.

A Brit & a Half

This is a story by Peter Betts: The 'Pat' he refers to is me.

A Brit’ & a Half Lost in OC by Peter Betts

On a journey of discovery, memories and comparisons

Every Assistance Short of Help

It’s a miracle I haven’t thrown the phone out of the window, precious lifeline that it is.

Technology is wearing down my defenses. “Tried to call you, Pete. You forgot to put your Voice

Mail on again,” David complained. “Don’t you ever look at your Missed Calls?” Pat accused.

She’d called me to pick her up and where was I? I wish her six-year old grandson were here to

explain the mysteries of modern-day cell phones. I’m just getting the hang of American land

lines. Although I’ve finally mastered the act of punching in the number and remembering

to push TALK, invariably I have to jam the phone to my ear in a futile attempt to translate

the far-away voice of an operator who sounds like he’s in Uzbekistan and who’s speaking on

some muffled headphone when all I’m trying to do is call an office in downtown L.A. After

several “Can you repeat that more slowly” or “more loudly” or both at once, I’m switched to

dead silence as I wait for Customer Care or Customer Service to vent my complaint. Am I

still connected? To whom and to where?

In the UK I got an earful of music while the operator put me on hold - Pop, Rap or

Classic don’t take your choice but they never played mine - Jazz. Here in America it seems

to be plain silence and silence isn’t golden unless we’re talking about the cost of the bill I’m

running up on my temporary pay-as-you-go cell. But the cheery, “Thank you for choosing dedah-

di-dah-di-dah” doesn’t cheer me when I wouldn’t call them if I could help it.

Back in Blighty, a colorful multitude of phone cards pasted inside local corner shop

windows obscuring the view offered passersby the opportunity to call Norway for as little as

21p or Ghana for 39p. They were guaranteed to save on British Telecom’s exorbitant rate on

phone calls but I never had anyone in either country that I felt I needed to speak to. Until

one day here in OC’s lovely Laguna Niguel, Pat needed to connect with the ‘outside world’.

She’d chosen to buy an item advertised on the Internet from a far off land. Emails shot from

here to China and back.

How did they wish to be paid for this possibly nefarious transaction for an item we

might never see? The Chinese person with the un-Chinese name of Nerissa emailed ‘Pay

only by Western Union.’ Didn’t even know they still had one. Thought it went out with the

Pony Express.

The phone number was found in the telephone book. Pat dialed. She had the name of

the payee. She had the amount due. All she wanted was a living human; even Wall-E would

have done. But the automated phone clicked in and she was talking to an electronic voice

that required answers: a distinct yes or no and no room for maybes. Finally, a human being

of unknown origin deigned to listen while she explained what she wanted to pay to whom and

why. She even gave her life story in an effort to get the purchase moving. When finally she

gave her credit card number she was told the transaction was confirmed and it would cost

forty dollars.

“Forty dollars? Why didn’t you tell me that at the beginning?” she moaned. The

Western Union voice explained that in this part of Orange County there were three

possibilities but a personal visit to Dana Point, the nearest point of call, would only cost $14.

Worth the trip.

WHAT A GREAT DEAL! IT’S EVEN WORTH

CALLING SOMEONE WE DON’T KNOW.

I SEE YOU CAN CALL

TIMBUCKTU FOR JUST

19P A MINUTE.

www.peebycartoons.com

©

Nostalically, we imagined Western Union to have a formidable building like the Post

Office with Stars and Stripes flying, so reaching the destination it was a surprise when the

address seemed to refer to a less-than-super market. The Mexican eating a tamale outside

thumbed the way inside. Taking a chance we stepped past him and went in.

From the smell of chili, the store was clearly catering to a Mexican clientele. “Western

Union?” Pat asked the man behind the till. The shopkeeper pointed with his free hand to the

back of the store.

And there it was, just behind the bananas. No sign. Nada. Only a Mexican girl in

a little cubicle behind a window, fronted by a desk for the customer. Pat’s transaction was

sandwiched between a girl sending money back to her family in Mexico and an elderly woman

with a bag of japaleno peppers in her hand, surprised at our presence.

But all was not smooth sailing. Pat’s attempt to send the money hit another snag.

Having carefully completed the lengthy green-headed form she handed over her debit card.

“Sorry, Señora, we only accept cash.” We had ten dollars between us. “There’s an ATM

around the corner,” the teller advised, with a look of disdain.

“Don’t trash that form!’ Pat glared at her. “We’ll be back.” So another short walk,

another bout of too many fingers as we attempted to extract dollar bills from an unfriendly

machine by not pushing the right buttons. Equipped with sufficient funds we returned to the

Western Union office secreted in a Mexican Supermarket and concluded the transaction to

everyone’s satisfaction.

As we headed back to our rented apartment, I marveled at the tenacity of the human

race. Those adventurous souls who set forth to another land always ready to send some of

their hard-earned bucks to their families back home and I wondered which of our family

might be needy? Was it us?