miss bernice.....

the piece is entitled "Introducing Miss Bernice BeNice"... this is a painting of my friend annie's mother-in-law, Bernice. she was young and innocent at the time of the photo. she is still youngish and innocent -only as some good mothers can be.
anyway, i thought i would name MY new GPS system after her.
(YES! i have succumbed to getting a GPS system for the Prius, even after the huge ordeal i wrote about in a previous post entitled "my husband's lover". that post featured the true story of our personal horror of "pong" driving throughout Florence, Italy).

so, this is how i ended up with a new GPS system.....it went like this:
last week, me: "i wish my prius had burnt up in the fire". (i realize this is an awful thing to wish for when many people did have their cars burn up last week....)
gastone: (suddenly hysterical) "what the ??? what??? why? i just bought you that car? what's wrong with the prius? i thought you loved that car....!
me: "oh yes, i really love the prius, that's why i wanted it to burn up"
Gastone: "are you being sarcastic?"
me: "not at all"
Gastone: sputtering "but, i don't understand..."
me: (kinda like gracie burns) "well, you see, i love the prius so much i was hoping it burnt up so that i could get a new one with an upgrade"
gastone: "what upgrade?" starting to understand my logic as only a husband of many years of fine tuning can.
me: "well i was thinking i would like better upholstery and a navigational system."
the words "navigational system" really turned bells on for him.
Gastone (blowing out his words in relief): "OH, well baby, i can get you a new navigational system if you want one, they are cheaper now than they were a year ago...."and then, "blah, blah navigational system, blah, blah, i will order it online, blah,blah,blah..."
next morning, he was already taking the new system out of the box he got in the mail and explaining to me how to operate it.
me: "how did you manage to do that?"
gastone: "do what?"
me: "get the navigational system here this morning after talking about it only last night?" i was wishing i could see that kind of action out of him - leaving for work each morning....
gastone: "i don't know, pretty good, huh?"

then the training period continued and before long we ended up going on a test drive in my prius with the new system talking our way to college grove shopping center via the freeway and home again, a route, i have to admit, i had never dreamed of taking in my life. gastone was as proud as the day we brought rosie home from the hospital, or perhaps, as proud as the day we brought dempsey home for the breeders. "pretty good, huh?" he repeated.
and that was our conversation for the next 2 hours, "pretty good, huh?" and me "yeah, pretty good". "isn't it an amazing thing?" and me "yes, it is a pretty amazing thing"...

so i named her bernice. i took bernice for her first drive today with kathy - we went to stampington (somerset studio magazine) in laguna hills and back. within 8 minutes, i was ready to toss bernice to the floor - which i did - while kathy has screaming that we ought to not treat her that badly since she knows the way.
the trouble with bernice is she talks all the time -- she tells me to not turn off on roads, like every road, that ever comes within view. what kind of moron wants to take every single exit?
she tells me to kept left and stay left. you know, not drive off the upcoming exit. do you know how many exits there are between here and laguna hills? i don't know either, but i will count them.
anyway, it was getting to kathy too. she finally said, gawd, if you keep left anymore as bernice wants you to, we will end up on the oncoming traffic side of the freeway and then end up driving in circles. i had had enough.
but didn't know how to turn her off. i made kathy put bernice in her bag on the floor - away from me. we could still hear her muffled voice telling me to keep left and stay left. my muscles in my shoulders were beginning to tense up - to the left.
i just knew i would be walking with a left tilt by the time we reached laguna hills.
kathy thought we ought to train bernice to repeat to me the word "no". so that i would learn that word. kathy has been tryin gto train me for a few years now to just say "no" to new volunteer spots.. i didn't see in bernice's instruction book how to get her to repeat that sort of training for me, but thought it was a pretty good idea.
oh well, its getting late. i will tell you about our laguna hills visit another day.