Title: Magellan Bitch
Author: Cathy Miller
Rating: PG for some language
Timeline: During transition
Summary: Josh and Donna traverse the land of Wisconsin with the help of Josh’s new GPS
device.
A/N: Dedicated to Anne Marie whose very own Magellan Bitch took us on a haunted road late
at night in New Jersey where there was no cell service…not a good combination
I try again, to surreptitiously pull the cell phone out of my purse.
“No phones, Donna.” Josh says without taking his eyes off the road. “Molly will get us there
just fine.”
“That’s what you’ve been saying for the last hour, Joshua.” I moan. “It’s almost midnight. I’m
tired and I just want to get to my parent’s new house.”
“And Molly will get us there using the best route with the least amount of traffic.” He assures
me.
“That’s what you keep telling me and it gets less and less believable every time you say that.”
I roll my head back against the car seat. “And can I say again that naming your GPS device is
a little…”
“Endearing?”
“I was going to say psychologically disturbing, but okay.” I shrug.
“Turn left, in point 3 miles.” The GPS device directs him and of course he does whatever she
says.
“I think you’re showing an unusually amount of animosity toward an inanimate object.” Josh
notes.
“That’s because you gave it a name, talk back to it, and ignore me while you listen to and
obey every directive Magellan bitch here tells you.” I mutter.
“Donna!” Josh looks horrified and tries to cover the GPS device so it isn’t offended by MY little
nickname. As if the damn thing has the ability to hear. “She didn’t mean that, Molly. She just
gets cranky when she’s tired.” He apologizes to it and I roll my eyes before I swat his arm.
“We need her directions, Donna. Don’t be pissing her off.”
“We really don’t, Josh. I know you’re enamored with your new friend here, but I had directions
to my parent’s new place.”
“From your parents.” He adds.
“Well, yes, since they actually live there and all.”
“But they don’t have the latest news, weather, and traffic programmed into their directions like
Molly here.”
“Joshua…It’s midnight in Wisconsin on a Tuesday night. Exactly how much traffic are you
anticipating?”
“There could be an accident…or something.” He points out.
“Oh, for the love of…”I reach into my purse, without any pretense this time, and take out my
cell phone.
“Donna, we are not calling you parents and telling them we’re lost! Molly estimates our arrival
in 21 minutes.” Josh presses a button and the disturbingly sexy female voice intones,
‘Estimated arrival in twenty-one minutes.’ He smiles over at me. “See?”
“I’m going to set aside the fact that she’s been saying that for the past THIRTY minutes! You
can relax; I’m not going to tell my parents we’re lost. I’m too humiliated to tell my parents that
my fiancé is too captivated with his GPS to listen to anyone in the Moss family about directions
in Wisconsin. I’m simply going to tell them we’re running late. It’s called being considerate and
…shit.”
Josh looks over at me in alarm. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s no cell service here. Where the hell are we, Joshua, that we can’t get cell service?!”
“In…Wisconsin.” He shrugs. “That’s not normal around here…out in the boonies?”
“We’re not supposed to be out in the boonies, is my point. My parents live in the city!” I grab
the GPS device out of it’s cradle and start pressing random buttons to try and get a general
overview of where we are on a map.
“Donna, I really don’t think you should mess with Molly like that. “ He shakes his head
worriedly. “Just set it back in the cradle, please.”
“I don’t know why you bought this damn thing to begin with.” I mutter and continue to press
buttons while Magellan bitch spews all kinds of worthless information at us.
“It gives you all this data and plans out your routes for you. It has weather and traffic
information. It’s great!” He tries to sell me on its’ merits once again to no avail.
“In a month, you’re going to be driven around by Secret Service agents who will be taking care
of all your routes, traffic and can even give you weather information if you’d like. So tell me
again why you had to have Magellan bitch affixed to your dashboard?”
“Donna. Quit calling Molly names.” He insists. “I know all of that, it’s just that…Molly’s totally
cool!”
I moan and consider throwing the bitch out of the window and taking our chances on celestial
navigation when she finally spews out something that means something to me. “Historic site,
The Dell House, in point five miles on right.” I nearly drop the thing on the floor.
“Oh. My. God!”
“What now?”
“Stop the car. Turn the car around.”
“What? Why?”
“Magellan bitch sends you in circles for hours and that’s fine with you but your fiancé asks you
to stop and turn the car around and you want a dissertation on why first?” I yell.
“I’m simply asking why you’re suddenly insisting on turning the car around.” He tries to defend
himself to me but he’s already made his allegiance to the bitch perfectly clear.
“Because she has led us directly to the devil’s door. It’s why we’re lost, why we can’t find our
way out of the woods and why the cell phone doesn’t work.” I yell some more in a panic
because we’re getting closer and closer to the Dell House.
“You’re not making any sense, Donna.” He shakes his head at me. ME! The queen of
research and trivia and he doubts my word.
“Stop the car, or the only female you’ll be intimate with ever again is Magellan bitch here.”
“Donna!” He looks shocked and slows the car but doesn’t stop. Okay. Fine. Desperate times
call for desperate measures.
I roll my window down and hold the bitch just outside it . “Stop the car or I send ‘Molly’ into the
fields forever.”
“DONNA!” Now he’s horrified.
“I mean it, Joshua. She’ll never direct you or anyone else ever again. She’ll waste away as her
batteries dies and you’ll never again hear her dulcet tones.”
That did it. He stops the car and puts it in park before turning to face me. “Donna. Hand me
Molly, and roll up the window.” He talks to me like I’m a suicide bomber with my finger on the
trigger. I could get used to this kind of power.
“Nope. Not until you turn the car around and drive as quickly as is legal and safe in the
opposite direction.”
“Why?” He probes and I make a fake motion with my arm to ditch the bitch. “Wait! I’m just
asking. I’ll turn around, I’m doing it right now.” He puts the car back in gear and makes a slow
U turn in the middle of the 2 lane road. Not like it matters. Nobody else is stupid enough to be
driving by the Dell House at midnight. We’re all alone on this road and we have been for miles.
“See we’re going the opposite way. Now bring Molly back in the car.”
I slowly bring my arm back in the car but refuse to put the window back up. When he tries to
raise it from the driver’s side, I stick Molly outside again.
“Just keep driving and everything will be fine.” I tell him.
“What is the problem?” Josh raises his voice while casting furtive glances at the bitch.
“She was taking us straight to the Dell House Joshua!”
“Which is…” Josh prompts me and while I’d prefer to wait until there’s a little more distance
between us and it before I told the tale, I’m worried that he’ll resume his previous course if I
don’t give him something.
“It was built in 1837 by a man named Allen and was located on a beach by the river. It was
a…dive and catered to all the nefarious men that worked on the river. There was drinking,
gambling, and women of…questionable reputations. There was said to be a lot of violence
there and more than a few people went ‘missing’ and were believed to be buried there.”
“Wait a second. You had me turn around because we were getting near a haunted house?”
Josh laughed.
“It’s not just A HAUNTED HOUSE.” I maintain. “People have disappeared from there. Electronic
equipment, like cell phones, mysteriously don’t work. People that have camped there have
heard loud swearing and the sounds of fistfights. The house mysteriously burned down and
there’s only a bit of it still standing.”
“Donna..are you kidding me here?” He scoffed at me; actually scoffed.
“This is not a joke, Josh. There’s like this…evil presence all around it. No wonder we were
sniping at each other. It was infiltrating us already.” I explain.
“We were sniping at each other, well really it was just you, because you don’t like Molly and
you’re very tired.” He counters.
“Whatever you say, Joshua.” I agree but my tone makes it clear that I’m not in agreement at all.
“Donna. I want you to think about something. Right now? I am the voice of reason here.”
God, he’s right…but I know what I know and I am not taking any chances. “Whatever.” I repeat.
“Okay, well can you at least put Molly back where she belongs?” he asks.
I consider that for a minute. “After I turn her power off.” I offer.
“Then she isn’t much use to us, is she?” He argues.
“She was taking us to The Dell House, Joshua!”
“Then how are we going to get to your parent’s house?” He asks with a smirk.
“Once we get beyond the influence of Dell House, the cell will work again and we’ll call them.” I
negotiate.
“Do you know how ridiculous that is when we have a state of the art GPS system right here?”
He demands and I simply move Magellen bitch closer to the window again.
“That’s extortion, Donnatella.”
“I’m fine with that. Your precious Molly can go safely into the glove compartment, powered
down, or she can give directions to the local wildlife in the fields here where you will NEVER
see her again.”
Josh considers his options and agrees to the glove compartment, although he’s clearly
unhappy about it. Within minutes, we get cell service again, and after lying to my parents
about losing their directions, I get them to navigate us out of this hell hole.
By one we arrive at my parent’s home and they’re waiting up for us. They adore Josh; or at
least my mom does. Dad is a little more standoffish, though he’s warmed up considerably
since we announced our engagement when we got back from Hawaii two days ago. The rest
of our trip goes off without a hitch and Josh is wise enough not to bring the bitch up at all.
It’s not until 2 years later that I realized how seriously he took my dislike of his GPS system. I
found a list of baby names that he’d apparently been soliciting from his staff during the early
months of my pregnancy. The only name he’d edited out?....Molly.
The End.
More information on the Dell House and other haunted sites in Wisconsin can be found here:
www.prairieghosts.com/dell.html
If you're interested in the true story behind this fictional one, here it is:
My adventure to NYC to join Anne Marie and Jennifer for our Brad fix was
unusual. I should have known something was off when I landed and texted
the women that my flight was on the ground. I got a reply back from
them that they were at the airport already but that I had NOT landed yet
because my flight was not listed on the arrivals board. I assured them
that regardless of the fact that my flight was not listed, I was indeed
there, and that whole interaction sort of set the tone for the weekend.
Anne Marie's new GPS, lovingly dubbed the Magellan Bitch, was able to
get us out of the airport parking lot (not as easy as it seems) and to
Jennifer's place without incident. It was on the way back to Anne
Marie's home in New Jersey that the fun began.
Our ride across the Tappanzee (sp?) bridge wasn't nearly as scary as I
was led to believe but I could see where it had the potential to freak
people out. Having come from Minneapolis, where we've recently had
issues with huge bridges COLLAPSING, I don't take anything for granted.
Magellan Bitch began instructing Anne Marie how to get home and although
it was a different route than Anne Marie usually takes, we were both
willing to follow Magellan Bitch's lead. It was around 11 pm and we were
both pretty tired. We follow the lovely voice emanating from the GPS
speaker and discover the road that we're on is getting narrower and
narrower. When the road turns to gravel and there's a sign indicating
'no access', Anne Marie decides Magellan Bitch is playing with us and
turns the car around waiting for it to re-calculate our route. However,
it stubbornly keeps telling us to "Make a U-turn when possible". We
drive a little farther hoping we'll either 1) find a road Anne Marie
recognizes or 2) Magellan Bitch will quit playing cat and mouse with us
and give us new directions.
Keep in mind that I have never been to New Jersey, and even if I had,
wouldn't have been any help navigating the pitch black roads at night.
So when we come to a road that Anne Marie recognizes, I encourage her to
take it. Still, Anne Marie hesitates in turning on the road. She assures
me that it will either lead to one road or another road, and either of
them will get us to her house. So again, I advise her to take it and let
Magellan Bitch take a nap. She pauses again, but finally turns onto
Clinton Road. (I already have a bad feeling about this turn due to the
recent primary fight going on in the Democratic party but Anne Marie is
acting decidingly strange and that sets off some alarm bells too.)
Magellan Bitch tells us it is 8 long miles on Clinton road before our
next turn and despite the fact that it is a long winding road and very
dark, Anne Marie is now driving faster and faster, telling me we'll be
off Clinton Road and on our way to her place in no time. I thought she
was trying to reassure me that she was not lost, but no, that was not
her nefarious purpose at all.
At one point we passed a car with New York plates going very slowly in
the other direction and Anne Marie's eyes kind of bugged out at it, but
again, I had no reason to suspect my VERY GOOD FRIEND of keeping
anything from me. We almost hit deer twice before we were halfway down
the length of Clinton Road, and Anne Marie was then babbling nervously
quite a bit, reassuring me every couple minutes that she knows where we
are and how to get home from here. I kept replying that it's no big deal
to me and continue to make fun of Magellan Bitch.
At one point I made a joke about stopping to ask for directions, but
Anne Marie just laughed nervously and took out her cell to call her
husband about the route we're taking. Imagine my shock when there was no
cell phone service there. Still, since Anne Marie said she knew where we
were, I remained happily ignorant of what was causing AM's stress.
Finally, we turn off the road onto a highway and Anne Marie takes this
deep breath. She said, now that we were off Clinton Road she could tell
me why she had been freaking out so much. Clinton Road is supposedly
haunted and when you add the facts that we were traveling late at night,
lost. It had put her on edge. The next morning, when her darling son
Sean woke me at 6 am. Anne Marie brought me a book that had several
pages on the Clinton Road phenomenon which included this little tidbit:
the two most dangerous days to travel on Clinton Road are Halloween
(duh) and May Day. Care to guess what the date was of our little trip?
Yes, it was May 1st.