How did people function?

I know, I know, haven't I written enough today? But aside from turning on a movie or folding laundry, I don't have much else to do right now (ah, well, if I were good and motivated, I could probably work on diaper sewing, but I'm sure that would just make Alex wake up... Murphy's Law and all that), and I just wanted to write.

Jesse went to Chicago on business today. Got up at 4am to catch a plane, and is on his way home right now. He just called from his cell, after getting off the highway because traffic had just turned monstrously bad. Why did he call? To find out how to get home from the side of the city he was on. Since we're unfamiliar with that area and all that jazz. So I sat in front of the computer, analyzing Google Maps, and gave him directions as he drove, so he could reach a major road that would take him to I-83. It was obscure enough to go through a few residential areas and a golf course. But once he found that road, it was home free to the Interstate, and then he could get home without sitting in traffic. And heaven knows that I want him to be home sooner rather than later, after a full day with the kids on my own! Jesse's always great about tag-teaming it with Alex in the evenings, when - like most newborns - Alex tends to be fussiest.

We often call each other on the phone to get last-second directions. Especially when either one of us ends up driving in the city and gets too adventurous or misses a turn, and needs help finding our way out of the mess of one-way streets and unfamiliar roads.

And every time it happens, I find myself very, very grateful for cell phones and internet maps. As well as wondering, how on earth did people manage to function before cell phones and internet? How did anyone find a person's home when driving there for the first time?? Or get through a busy city without getting hopelessly lost?!? Or make a cross-country trip when they'd never before been anywhere near where they were going???

I know, I know, they had maps. They had phones at gas stations. They got verbal directions from people they knew. Right? But it sounds so complicated and easily confused. I can't imagine living like that! Before I had a cell phone, I pretty much never ventured places I wasn't familiar with, in order to avoid getting lost. And if I went to the city, I stuck pretty close to the freeway so there wasn't much chance of getting lost (although, I do remember one time in Seattle where I ended up crossing a huge bridge a couple times while trying to find the entrance to the freeway on my way home, so even that wasn't foolproof).

But now, NOW, I have a cell phone, and I have the internet. Going to visit a friends house and never been there before? Type the two addresses in, and get a turn-by-turn set of directions in an instant. Get a travel time estimate, a distance estimate, and simply click to see the route in either map form or in satellite picture form. I can literally almost see exactly what the roads will look like before I've ever traveled on them, and I have yet to get lost when I take a printed Google Map with me on my trip. But if I don't have a map, or if I do get lost, help is a single button-push away (yeah, Jesse's on speed-dial, too, of course!). If Jesse isn't with me, he is usually at a place where he has access to a computer, and therefore a map. I can tell him what roads I'm near, and he can tell me which way I need to go. What a lifesaver these technologies are! I absolutely can't imagine myself functioning without them. Even with options like street maps and gas station phones.... street maps don't give you turn-by-turn directions, and are too clunky to use while driving. Gas station phones?? Forget it, while I've got 3 kids in the car!!

Of course, I suppose in 10-15 years, nobody will be able to imagine how anyone functioned without in-car GPS systems, right? Well, for now, my cell phone and Google Maps are perfectly functional for me. :)