Not Entirely Clueless with a Cellphone: Adventures in Stereotypes (Lynn)

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It is a truth generally acknowledged that a woman gives directions based on landmarks, but there are many of my sex who give directions in the manly manner. Not for us is the feminine discursive, “It’s just a skosh beyond the big chicken statue by the garage with blue roof.”  The figurative approach may be a regional rather than sex-linked trait given the friendly loquacity of rural Midwesterners and Southerners as opposed to laconic New Englanders. Women and men in those locales commonly offer such help as  “It is aways yonder just by ol’ Dalton’s place, you’ll see the turn right there by the barn he was always gonna pull down before it fell down.” In either case, I belong to the clan that trusts cardinal directions and reasonably estimated distances will indeed get you there from here. You could plan an invasion with the specificity I provide. Pinpointing our location for the AAA service for a minor roadside emergency last week after my parents' customary survivalist stock-up at Costco and a long morning of doctor’s appointments should have been easy-peasey.

“Was I in a safe location?” AAA rep Nadia asked after two dropped connections on my rudimentary flip phone. Yes, at least the car was. I had left it parked in a roadside pullout at the bottom of the cactus-studded, no doubt rattlesnake-crawling, scrubby, shrubby desert hill that stood between me and a steady cell signal.  I was confident that my parents were sitting on the shady side of the car enjoying ice cream from the cooler on the back seat. I was reasonably sure that my 82-year-old father would not wheel his walker to back of his Honda CRV and unload two hundred pounds of dog food, kitty litter and potting soil to access a spare tire none of the three of us could mount.

In years past, the AAA dispatchers knew me immediately by voice because I was frequently on the outside with my keys on the inside of a prudently but prematurely locked car. Since cars have long come with clickers, Nadia and I had to run though the name and number protocol. She assured me help would soon be on its way, just as soon she could tell the tow trucker where we were. Pinpointing our exact location became a Pythonesque contest for points scored as Nadia and I strove toward our common goal.

I opened with “The car is one third of a mile inside the east entrance to Saguaro National Park West. It is on the north side of the road at the first marked pullout in the park.” Nadia responded. “So, you are just east of Old Soldier’s Trail?”

I explained that Saguaro National Park is bisected by the City of Tucson. One half is at the foot of the Rincon Mountains on the east side of the valley. The other half is on the west side of the valley, on the far side of the Tucson Mountains. “We are closer to Picture Rocks, which is a community on the other side of town just west of the west boundary of the westside park.” That was far too many ‘wests’—“Oh! You are just outside of the entrance, near Kinney and Sandario?” “No, that’s on the (inward wince) west side of the park. I’m just inside the east boundary.”  There was nothing I could add, there were no distinctive features beside the road dipping and curving below me. There wasn’t much traffic, either, although the few cars passing below me were zipping through the desert as though it were an amusement park. Again I hoped my parents were staying off the road.

A short pause ensued before Nadia said, “Aha! Then you are at Gates Pass on the southeast side entrance.” Oh, damn, I’d forgotten that existed, I hadn’t been there since high school.  I said, “We’re on—I mean the car itself is on—Picture Rocks Road, I’m not, I can’t get a signal in the valley, I myself am about 400 yards up a hillside. But Picture Rocks the road is the only one through the monument that goes to Picture Rocks the town. That’s the road we’re on.”

Another silence on the line made me fearful that Nadia was offended by an emphasis misinterpreted as snottiness, but no, the call had been dropped, again. As I walked gingerly around prickly pears casting for a signal, I tried to see through the brush that obscured both the car and the road below.  If I didn’t speed things up a bit, my father would inevitably go for the buried spare.

The third call connected and I rushed through the protocol. “Can you get me to Nadia?” A new female voice, Sandra, said, “Ma’am, I have computer captioning of your previous service ticket. I see a tow truck has been dispatched to the Sandario and Kinney intersection. Which quadrant are you on?”

“None of them, we’re not there. We’re on the other side of the park.”

 “Are you on Old Soldiers’ Trail?”

“No, no, no, not Saguaro Park East, the east side of Saguaro—wait, wait, forget that, and forget the whole park part.” I took a calming breath. “We are on Picture Rocks Road, about a mile southwest from the Picture Rocks and Ina Road intersection.”

“I see Picture Rocks intersects with Kinney Road.”

“Yes, yes, it does, but we’re about fifteen miles (heaven help me) EAST of that intersection. I'm sorry, I don’t have GPS. Maybe we could just ping my cell phone?”
Sandra said, “Ma’am, that is for serious emergencies only, I’m sure a flat tire does not rise to that level of need. The service rep will certainly find you on Picture Rocks Road. The driver will call you when he is—.” The call dropped for a fourth time.

It was indeed up to him (or her) now. I couldn’t be sure I’d get any call up on the hill any more than down at the road level and my parents had been alone far too long.

As I scudded down the rock channel I’d scurried up, I thought about the limits of language and technology, or just maybe of my ability to use either.  I was inclined to blame the technology. I loved my car clicker but had decidedly diminished affection for my flip phone. As I neared the pullout, I saw the CostCo contents neatly stacked by the open tailgate of the CRV. The spare had been changed by a rancher who had pulled off the road because her huge battered pickup had radiator trouble.

The Good Samaritan and I reloaded the boxes and bags and we were soon rolling down Picture Rocks Road. A call from the AAA tow truck driver came in as we exited the park boundary. He had been delayed, but was now approaching the Kinney and Sandario intersection.  I thanked him and said all was now well and goodbye.  Modern technology eases our lives in myriad ways, but a little mechanical tech in the form of a jack, a four-way tire iron and an old-fashioned neighborly chat had saved this day.