In case you're wondering what I gave my true love

OK, I gave the guy a present. It took me a while to get around to it, but at some point on the fifth or sixth day of Christmas, I went over to BestBuy and bought him this:

It's a Garmin Nuvi 660 GPS doohickey.

And he loves it. Which is good, because I don't want to go back to that store any time soon.

See, I don't know anything about GPSes, except that I was willing to bet my husband would love one. After all, he loves maps. He loves gadgets. Well, what could be more mappy and gadgety, right?

I didn't know the best model to buy, because actually waste time researching this? As if I could be bothered.

So I had to throw myself on the mercy of the BestBuy guy, the guy in the blue polo shirt who earns minimum wage and might have no superior knowledge of the product line whatsoever. So I buttonholed a salesman, and shoved a couple of guys out of the way ("Out of my way, looky-lous. I'm here to BUY SOMETHING," I think I remember saying.) I told the BestBuyGuy my price range and told him that I wanted the biggest screen with the most (and I quote) "mapping crap."

"Mapping crap?" he asked, while a couple of guys nearby turned their heads away to hide their grins. (Hey guys, so I don't know the correct terminology, so what? At least I'm not spending my life hanging around in front of a GPS display on a lovely Saturday afternoon, drooling over all the cool new features available in the most recently released model.

I mean, it was beginning to remind me of Hogwarts students checking out the latest brooms in that shop in Diagon Alley.)

Poppy: Yes, mapping crap. You know--I want to get the model with the most mapping data.

BestBuyGuy: OK. Do you want (unintelligible)?

Poppy: I'm sorry. I didn't hear that.

BBG: Do you want (unintelligible?)

Poppy: Excuse me? Could you repeat that?

BBG: (Unintelligible)? You want it to have boys wreck cognition?"

Poppy: Oh ... 'voice recognition.' You know what ... I don't know if that would be such a good idea. I mean, does the one you bought have voice recognition, and if so, does it have a hard time understanding you? Because I sure do.

OK, so this was probably the single wittiest remark I ever made in my life. Seriously, all these guys were laughing--and laughing with me, you know, not at me, which is probably a lot more likely to happen in a BestBuy store.

I mean, when I went to pay, I heard this guy repeating what I had said to the salesman, and the guy repeating it had a cleft palette or something that kept him from a career in broadcasting--and even he thought I was so funny that he forgot that maybe I should be more sensitive to people who might have a little trouble e-nun-ci-a-ting.

So the good news is that That Stud Muffin I Married loves his GPS very much. He went out the next day and deliberately got lost so it could get him home again.

Also, the guys at BestBuy think I am the funniest technophobic middle-aged woman they've ever met.

And I didn't have to pop for five golden rings.