Faeire

Last week, my Android phone automatically updated its software. Without prompting for my explicit consent! I didn't recall it ever having done that before. I woke up to this strange icon on screen. "What is this?" I thought. "Do... not... compute!"

After an eternity of "packet x of y"s, when my phone finally was revived, EVERYTHING looked different. I am not fond of change. But, promised more stability, I learned to accept that change was inevitable.

Then I launched the Navigator app powered by Google Maps and BOOM! Who is this??!

It was the voice of a younger, more pleasant, more human female.

When I first started using the app for work, I was about a decade behind my peers probably. Old-school, I'd hung on to maps for dear life (even if they had turned digital), using my brain instead of relying on a machine telling me I was 500 feet away from my next turn.

I hated the voice of the Navigator then. She was older, stern and stoic. When Google Maps would insist that I had arrived at my destination, and I'd be in the middle of nowhere, it was her I'd get mad at. I have told her to shut up in the midst of angst and frustration.

And now she was gone forever. I felt like I had lost a friend without seeing the departure coming. We never said goodbye.

It gets lonely out there. Having a human-esque companion keeps one anchored. You know, much like Wilson to Chuck in Cast Away.

But who can deny the new, friendlier voice was an obvious upgrade? If she was hipper, I felt hipper.

Deep down, I don't feel hip. And boy, have I tried all my life. At work, where I consider everyone very hip, I have reverted to the kid who was trying to fit in at school, knowing full well that I didn't belong with the cool kids. It seems that the harder I try, the more I stick out like a sore thumb.

If only I could stop caring and stop trying. It's all very tiring.

One night, while driving with my trusty Nav, I made a naughty move, causing it to reroute.

All of sudden, it was the voice of that old witch guiding me through the next step. She's back! I was bewildered. She's not gone?

As soon as I was back on the right track, though, the mother hen was once again replaced by the princess of today. In time I learned that the ghost of guidance past would reappear briefly only in the event of my defying a pre-ordained route.

I was relieved. In a way, it was death that I didn't have to deal with. "Her" guest appearances are rewards to my rebellion or trespasses. I don't know what to make of this phenomenon entirely, but it makes me feel less uncool about not being hip. Maybe.