Getting Here From There

I use my smartphone for many things but just last weekend I realized that I would have to add "stand-up comedy" to the list of services it was capable of providing.

I had gone to a friend's birthday party down in Yonkers and although I was fairly sure I could navigate out of his neighborhood onto the Saw Mill Parkway, I thought I would use the GPS in my phone just to be sure. Since it is always dangerous to try to type and/or text while driving, I put the phone on my dashboard and used the voice recognition feature to enter my destination. I hit the button to speak and clearly stated, Phoenicia, NY.

A message came back to me "DID YOU MEAN SHIMMY SHACK, NY?" LOL!!! Is there really a "Shimmy Shack, NY"? If there is I think I might just have to move there. In my imagination living in any place named Shimmy Shack requires wearing a fringe dress everyday and playing a lot of stripper music. But I probably wouldn't get a lot done so maybe I should just go home to Phoenicia.

Anyway, I laughed for quite a while before I was able to pull myself together and hit the voice entry feature again. This time I enunciated very distinctly "PHOE-NI-CIA, NEW YORK". Another message came back saying "DID YOU MEAN SODDY S#%T, NY?" (since this is a family site I replaced some of the letters in the second word but I am sure you all know what I mean). Well, that was just too much for me! I had to pull over!! I laughed until I cried. And deep down I had to admit that "Soddy S#%t" might be somewhere close to Phoenicia.

Then I realized that the voice recognition software is an excellent way to entertain yourself but if I wanted to get home sometime that day I would have to figure out something it would understand. So I hit the button a third time and said Woodstock. I felt this was a bit of a cop out on my part but I made it back to my house just fine. But next time I need a laugh I am just going take out my cellphone and see how many other interesting ways this device can interpret Phoenicia. Hey, it's cheaper than a comedy club.