mistify

"Will you just stop shouting at me? I can't think!" Serena was trying to read details on her phone as her husband, Sean continued to bellow beside her.

"Go down here, you said! So I did and now look at us! We're on a bloody footpath, not a road and we're about to get wedged between two bloody stone walls!"

She had never known Sean so cross. His face was puce and the thread veins on his nose were throbbing with rage.

Serena hated GPS systems and their stupid untrustworthy instructions. She had thought something was wrong but had trusted the simulated voice and this is where trust had led her. Into another argument.

Sean's hands were drumming on the steering wheel and she knew she had moments before she would have to field another lava surge of anger and frustration.

He was just about to erupt when there was a knock on the back window of their almost wedged hatchback.

"Excuse me? Are you okay?"

An elderly gentleman in a flat cap was stood behind the car.

"Do you need some help getting out of there?"

"Oh God," Sean moaned, mainly out of embarrassment at being discovered there by a local.

Serena opened her window and shouted "Yes, please!" before Sean could comment and the nice old boy guided them effectively out of their predicament.

Grateful for his intervention and the mistification, Serena also very much appreciated the old man's parting words:

"You're the third one this week!"

***

Before writing this, I did a search and this word did not exist and was merely quoted as being a misspelling of "mystify". However, when doing a subsequent search after writing it for mistification, the word "mistify" had miraculously inched its way to the top of the deep ball pool of words that loiter around the internet to confound and surprise me and ultimately, prevent me from entering this story into the Neolomicro challenge.

No matter.

Not entering it also gives me the chance to discuss the inspiration for this story in the word count so good things can come from bad. It is based on a news story I saw where a tourist couple had followed their GPS and it had literally sent them up a footpath where they subsequently became wedged between two stone walls, somewhere in Wales. They had to wait hours to be removed from their predicament by rescue services and had a lot of explaining to do to the hire company afterwards. Damage to the walls was minimal, the car was dented and scratched but their dignity and self-confidence were irrecoverable.

I too have been subject to the mischievous nature of GPS instructions when once, on a trip to Quebec City, the GPS advised us to get off a main road to do a small tour of a circular side street before getting back onto the main road we had just left and continue straight on our journey as we would have done if we hadn't had this temporary diversion.

Is there a prankster amongst the people responsible for these instructions? I think so!

I think we can all relate to the frustrations associated with finding our way round new places without clear instructions and the arguments it can lead to, so I thought I'd go ahead and publish this anyway.

If you do read it, please leave a comment and thanks for stopping by!