We were headed to a wedding in a New Jersey suburb, one heck of a long way from Western North Carolina, and before we left, my beloved spouse asked if I knew how to get there. Being somewhat troubled by my vague response involving Google maps and the hotel phone number, he gratefully accepted my sister’s offer of her GPS system for the trip.

It was going to be great. The little GPS box was sleek and black; it still had that new plastic smell. (Clearly, it had never been in my car.) It would know the best, most efficient way to get exactly where we were going, anywhere we wanted to go. It would tell us exactly how to get to the Hyatt Hotel in Fair Lawn, N.J., and then, if we wanted to go to a fur trapper’s cabin in the Arctic Circle, it would take us there, too. No more fights about where we should turn or what to do after missing the turn. No more insecurities about whether we were on the right road or in the right state. Not even any issues with what exit we should take to get gas — the GPS could tell us exactly where the gas stations were, all of them.

The GPS would keep our trip time, so we wouldn’t have to have that particular debate:

“What time did we leave?”

“Eight o’clock.”

“No, I think we left the house at eight o’clock, but you had to go to the post office and the coffee shop.”

“Yeah, you’re right. 8:20.”

“No, you were in the coffee shop for at least half an hour and we went to the post office after that.”

“I didn’t take that long in the coffee shop.”

“Well, 15 or 20 minutes, then. NPR made it through all of the election news and was well into Iraq by the time you got back.”

“So you tell me what time we left.”

“I dunno. After we got to the post office, I forgot to look.”

The blessed little magic black box would eliminate that conversation altogether. Plus, it could tell us our current speed, our average speed, and how fast the driver drove while the passenger was napping. Basically, the blessed little magic black box would eliminate all human error, confusion, and contentiousness. What could be better than that? The trip was going to be all right.

And it was all right, all the way up 81 through Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and the first part of Pennsylvania. We still had some common traveling issues:

“What’s that smell?! Is that you?!”

“No! It’s not me! I swear! Pennsylvania’s a stinky state!”

Or, “What! You have to go to the bathroom AGAIN! Why didn’t you go when we stopped for gas!”

But as far as driving directions, trip time, etc, the GPS was right on the mark. All its instructions exactly matched what the map told us to do. (We had the map for back-up.) And, a few hours into the trip, my beloved spouse discovered that we didn’t just have to read the instructions on the screen. There was a GPS lady with a computerish voice, and if we wanted, she herself would tell us exactly when to turn.

The GPS lady helped us make the correct turn onto 78 in Pennsylvania and then onto 287 and 80 in New Jersey. The problems began when we decided to pick up my friend at the train station.

“Sure, we can find the train station. We have the GPS,” we said, and when we entered in the name of the train station, the GPS lady thought for a moment and came up with a plan. We would take exit 31, then a left onto South Main, then a right onto Nathaniel Drive, then another right onto Lexington, then left onto Hawthorne and we would be there. What could be easier?

Half an hour later, as we were sitting through the seventh traffic light on South Main, watching a drug deal go down, we wondered about the wisdom of the GPS lady’s route and whether it might not have been better to have stayed on the highway for another exit or two. Forty-five minutes later, as we were winding through the many neighborhoods of Paterson, N.J., we thought that there almost certainly was a better route to the train station.

And it was somewhere in the neighborhoods of Paterson that we met the darker side of the GPS lady. Up until then, her voice had been cordial, if not downright friendly. My beloved spouse, who was driving at the time, was speculating about whether he could program her to periodically say things such as, “Youuu are suuuuch a good driver. Turn right onto Hawthorne.” But the in the midst of his reverie, the GPS lady turned on him. He missed a turn and she was not forgiving. In quite a cold voice, she said, “ReCALculating.” And then she said it again and again, every time we didn’t quite turn on the road she expected us to turn on. The honeymoon was over.

We finally made it to the train station and found my patient friend, sitting on her suitcase, waiting. When we explained the situation to her, she gave the little black box an appraising look, and said, “Oh.”

As we drove away, we listened carefully to the GPS lady’s directions to the hotel. She had recovered her composure and in a friendly voice said, “U-turn ... Right onto Hawthorne ... Left onto Lexington. . .”

“No way,” I said. “We’re not going downtown again. Don’t turn.”

My beloved spouse, stuck between me and another woman, knew what to do. He didn’t turn.

The GPS lady was not pleased. “ReCALculating,” she responded, in an icy voice, and then she remained silent for a long time. Eventually, she spoke again. “Left on James Avenue.”

“No,” I said. “That will take us back downtown. Stay straight.”

We stayed straight.

“ReCALculating.” The GPS lady was not happy. “Left onto Fair Lawn Drive.”

“No.”

“ReCALculating,” she answered with disdain. “Right on Broadway.” That was the street that the hotel was on; clearly, she was now ready to get this over with.

We turned. We drove a little way, and we followed her directions. But she apparently had a vengeful streak mixed in with her wires and receivers.

“Straight on 4,” she said.

We went straight on 4.

“ReCALculating,” she said in an irritated voice.

“What! We stayed straight on 4!”

She refused to argue. “U-turn.”

My beloved spouse protested, “Where am I supposed to U-turn? This is a one-way street!”

“Take the next exit,” I interject.

“There! There’s a gas station!” cries my friend. “We can turn there!”

GPS: “ReCALculating.”

Spouse: “All right, we’re back on 4.”

GPS: “Straight on 4.”

Friend: “Where is this place? We’ve got to be close.”

Me: (pulling out my Google maps) “It should be on Broadway and 4.”

GPS: “ReCALculating.”

Spouse: “D——it!”

Me: “I’ll get us there! Turn on Broadway ... Yes . . See, the numbers are 39-01, and the hotel’s 41-01. We’re almost there.”

Friend: “Now the numbers are 32-00.”

GPS: “ReCALculating.”

Beloved Spouse: “These &^%$! streets are all one way!”

GPS: “ReCALculating.”

And so on. Finally after 20 minutes of driving around all the roads within a half-mile radius of our hotel, one of us happened to look up and see the hotel sitting there on the side of the road. We pulled in, exhausted.

“What’s our time?” I asked. My spouse flipped through the GPS screens.

“It’s not here,” he said.

“What!”

“The time’s not here.”

“Where did it go? It was there when we started!”

“I don’t know. Did you turn the car off when you got gas this morning?”

“Of course,” I said, glaring at him.

“Maybe there’s no battery.”

“*&%$#!”

The wedding went fine. We got up early the next morning and drove home using the map. On the way into town, we went by my sister’s to return the GPS. We didn’t stop; I slowed down long enough for my beloved spouse to pitch it onto the front porch. My sister later reported that when she stepped outside to retrieve her GPS, she found the mangled little black box still talking. “ReCALculating!” it was repeating in an angry whisper, “ReCALculating!”

As for us, we missed three turns on the way home and had two arguments about the trip time. It was great.

(Stephanie Wampler is writer and mom who lives in Waynesville. She can be reached at swampler@att.net.)