So I'm sitting in my car driving along at 55 mph and all of a sudden in the road up ahead, stretching side to side across the highway, is a brick wall. Its kind of hazy out but I'm pretty sure that's what it is. And its getting closer awfully fast.
It can't be real. The first thing I do is a sanity check - there aren't brick walls in the middle of roads. To be sure I'm not losing my mind or I'm just over-tired, I turn on my GPS and sure enough, it's telling me there's a brick wall in a mile.
My first thought is to get off at the exit just ahead and find another route to get to my destination. But my GPS suddenly speaks up; "Accelerate to 90 mph. And continue straight for 11 miles."
There's no arguing with a GPS. It's a dumb terminal receiving coordinates from a satellite and working from a pre-programmed map. It won't listen. It's locked into a plan.
Of course that plan has me ending in a hellacious ball of fire very soon. So I wake up my passengers who having taken their turns driving are catching some sleep. I tell them we have to get off the exit now or we will crash. Except they don't seem to notice the encroaching brick wall or the even more imminent last exit before our doom. They want me to listen to the GPS. I guess they figure I've let us get behind schedule. And I guess they figure there's NO WAY a GPS system can be wrong.
"Accelerate to 90 mph immediately and continue straight for 10.7 miles." Dispassionate.
Right about now is the time in a dream that people normally wake up, except that's not happening this time. And while I'm thinking that, I foolishly pass the last exit. I can still just slam on the breaks, right? Nope - they are broken. And there appears to be no way to navigate around the wall any more because it extends off into the forest on either side of the highway.
Worse still, all the cars behind me are accelerating - on both sides of the road. There really is no way out. I curse myself for not acting when I had the chance.
And as I prepare myself for our impending doom, I'm forced to be comforted by the fact that everyone about to crash is at least covered by government health care. Too bad the ambulances are rushing headlong into the wall too.
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