I Trusted Waze, and Now I’m in a Low-Budget Remake of Children of the Corn

It all started out so well. I’d just wrapped a drop-off at a gay campground somewhere in Ohio. They were happy, I was happy, and I was feeling myself—like I’d just cured cancer in my mind. No fanfare, no applause, just me and the open road, feeling myself.

Suddenly I heard "Rerouting" reverberate from the dash. Waze had rerouted me.

Now, I should have questioned it. But no. I followed blindly, like Waze was some divine oracle and not a caffeine-addicted intern pulling directions out of a hat. And I didn’t just follow it—I believed it. Like, “Oh, maybe this is one of those cool secret shortcuts only Waze knows about!”

Narrator: It was not.

About thirty minutes in, I passed a landmark that looked… hauntingly familiar. A sudden wave of dread hit me. Waze hadn’t just sent me down a different route. Waze was guiding me back to the campground. I was in a loop. Like a cursed gay NPC, doomed to deliver shirts forever in cornfield purgatory.

The shame? Instant. The setting? Horrific.

At one point I passed a small Baptist church with a reader board that said “God sees you,” and my inner monologue went: “Great. If God sees me, tell Him to send some better directions.”

I was stuck behind a tractor, my phone signal was fading, and the sinking realization hit me that this detour had tacked on 45 minutes to my trip. I was spiraling. To make it worse, I found myself defending Waze in my head. "Maybe it’s just recalculating..." "Maybe I clicked the wrong thing..." "Maybe I deserve this."

I was living out that moment—Michael Scott screaming “THE MACHINE KNOWS!” as he drives into a lake. Only in my case, it was soybeans and shame.

I still don’t fully understand how it happened. I just know that one minute I was a confident small business owner heading home, and the next, I was the lead in a queer horror reboot where the killer is a rogue GPS system.

Eventually, I did get home. I survived. Emotionally shaken, spiritually dented, but technically alive.

Did I learn anything? No. I will one hundred percent trust Waze again tomorrow like this never happened. That’s just who I am a blind tech follower. I'll own it, such is the life for an early adopter.

But if you’ve ever blindly followed a GPS into nonsense—if you’ve ever been so sure you were going home, only to end up back where you started—you’re not alone. I’m right there with you. Probably speeding. Probably screaming. Probably already lost again.

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