lucky charms inspire creativity.

Well, I ate my lucky charms yesterday for lunch, and now I've got all sorts of blog ideas running through my head. There MUST be a connection.

You know, I was thinking about my generation during our trip to Seattle this last Christmas, thinking about how my generation is going to have a lot of lasts. We're going to be the last generation that even remotely knows how to write properly. We're going to be the last generation that can remember land line telephones. We're going to be the last generation who actually had to WAIT to get a cell phone, until we were at least teenagers, or older even. But one thing that really stuck out to me, is that our generation may be the last to know how to read a map properly.

Nathan and I were getting our rental car (don't ever rent from Budget cars..) at the SEA-TAC airport and while checking out, the lady asked us if we wanted a Garmin GPS system with our Escape. Now, Nathan had just gone to another counter, not more than five minutes before, and picked up a city map and brought it back to the Budget counter with him. It was sitting there right in front of him, with his hand resting on it, while this lady is talking to him. Nathan and I both shook our heads, "No, we don't need a GPS". She looked shocked. How could two young whipper snappers NOT need a GPS?? I'm sure she could just imagine us not even being able to get out of the airport parking .. just driving in circles, round and round the parking garage, bemoaning the fact that we never got that GPS, and now we are so lost we can't even find our way back to the Budget counter to crawl on hands and knees to the rental agent and BEG to please give us a second chance and let us rent the GPS. Seriously, a map is so much easier. If you get lost, you just find the next road that loops around to where you need, and it gives you a birds eye view of where you're at. With a GPS system, all you can do is bite your tongue to keep from cursing the annoying woman that keeps telling you to turn around because you missed your turn. It doesn't help that you have absolutely no idea where you're at, because yes, it shows you on your screen the next road up ahead, but if you just took your beady little eyes off the screen and looked at the ROAD, you could see that next road up ahead. And if you had a map, then you could see the next five roads up ahead. Wow, how brilliant of an idea is that?

Anyway. It hit me that most people have fallen prey to Tom-Tom's, Garmins, etc. and no one buys atlases anymore. So I'm sure that when I have kids, they will think I'm weird, square and old-fashioned, when I refuse to use a GPS system, and pull out an old map. But then, instead of being disapointed for their parents being so annoyed with the TomTom that we threw it out the window, the only disappointment my kids will suffer is realizing that state don't change color once you cross the border, but rather most look the same.