I’m afraid I’ve lost the actual permalink, but while going through the Gas Guy‘s archives, I noticed a post that talked about our society’s expectation that gas station workers will be able to provide directions.

As the Gas Guy points out, there’s no particular reason to believe that gas station employees will be able to provide directions. They’re probably local to the area where they work, which implies some familiarity, but not necessarily an expertise in navigating the area, much less in giving directions.

So, I was thinking — why doesn’t someone design a kiosk that, for a couple of bucks, would provide directions? The kiosk could be installed in convenience stores (or other businesses that see a lot of travelers), thus eliminating the need to get vague directions from an old man who thinks “and then you go thataways for a little bit” is a fine way of navigating. Seems like it’d be simple enough; in addition to the online services like Mapquest, I can think of at least two companies (DeLorme and Microsoft) that provide software that, given two addresses, can generate directions quickly. By locking the “start” address to the gas station (or at least auto-filling it), it’d be almost impossible for a customer to get bad directions.

In addition to ensuring that your customers would be able to obtain accurate directions to their destination, a device of this type would help to stabilize the American family. After all, there would never be any reason to ask for directions, and therefore, no reason for men to avoid it (or women to nag at them for not doing it).