Missoula, MT: Another life was saved from faulty electronics yesterday, as local authorities found a man in his car on the mountain roads of Montana, severely dehydrated and, more importantly, out of gas. What was most alarming to local sheriff Mitchell Upton was the license plate of the car was from Vermont.
“People from out of state rural areas generally don’t come to Montana. There’s not much to see that people from, say, Vermont, haven’t seen in their backyard already. There’s just more of it here. Initially, I thought it may be one of them hippies who chew peyote and dance around naked in our forests. But this man, he was dressed in a polo shirt. Huge giveaway. He was lost.”
Lost he was. Apparently the driver, college student Ryan O’Donnell, left his home in Waterbury, Vermont, on a trip to visit his girlfriend Isabelle Pinlater, 
who goes to school at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. The trip, which was supposed to be a bit longer than seven hours, turned into a five day trek into the wild of Montana. O’Donnell blames the occurrence on his car’s electronic navigational system.
“I plugged in the town Izzie lives in, like I always do. I usually don’t enter the whole address, because I take a shortcut when I get into Easton. I left in the morning, and must have gotten sidetracked in upstate New York because all of a sudden it’s dark out, and I need to check into a motel off of the interstate,” explaned Mr. O’Donnell.
When asked how he explained to himself that it took longer than a day to drive a normal seven hour trip, Mr. O’Donnell answered, “Hey man, I was following the GPS. It’s never steered me wrong before.”
Three days later, Mr. O’Donnell was still driving to Easton, Pennsylvania, or so he thought. “Really, sometimes these navigational systems know about traffic problems, accidents, and nuclear attacks. At least, that’s what the box it came in said. I figured the safest bet was to keep following the course.”
Upon examination of the navigational system in Mr. O’Donnel’s car, it became apparent that the town entered into the GPS was “Entiat,” located in the state of Washington, instead of Easton, Pennsylvania. When asked about this, and why the screen showed the “distance to destination” in Egyptian hieroglyphics, Mr. O’Donnell would not comment.
This has been the latest case in the unfortunate mishaps caused by electronic navigational systems. In a past incident, Miss Stephanie Wilkenson of Omaha, Nebraska, drove her car into Lake Michigan because her GPS told her to do so in order to get to Quebec in Canada. In another incident, Gary Finch of Atlanta, Georgia, drove up a ski slope at the Killington, Vermont Mountain Resort in order to get to his cabin. These incidents have made some people wonder not only about the usefulness of these devices, but also the intelligence of these certain individuals who follow the instructions of these devices to the letter.
When asked what he will do once he is able to travel, Ryan O’Donnell stated, “Well, I’m giving that drive to Izzie another shot. Of course, my next stop will be to a Best Buy store to get an upgraded GPS. That should help me get to Easton.”
Special thanks again to AZ for inspiration.