Life for Rent

As much as I travel, I can count on one finger - for business - how often I have had trouble with rental car companies.

Sure, they jack the price around with so many taxes that the quoted prices per day or per week is nothing like the final bill, but that's to be expected.

I'm talking about having available cars.  Only once in Sacramento did this happen to me.

Now, in personal travel where I need a car, it seems to be much more frequent.  Granted the 'n' in that type of scenario is very low, so the percentage then becomes high.

My last personal car rental was a year ago in Boston.  They didn't haven't the reservation.  When they did kind of find it - it seems someone had not only typed over the reservation, but most of my personal profile information, which seemed quite scary.  It didn't seem that an alternate identity was using the credit card on file, but it wouldn't have taken much for that to happen.

So imagine my surprise that this year - in Boston - that I get to Hertz and my name isn't on the Gold board. The idea is to get your name from said board and just go to your car avoiding the inside of the rental agency.

No such luck.

I joined what was 5-6 others whose name was not on the board.  Soon there were another 10 behind me.  Fudge.  But I didn't say fudge.

Mind you - there was no one at the Gold counter.....for 5-7 minutes.  I would have bolted too if I were the one who had to convey to member after member that there was a glitch.  The 95 degree temps just added to the frustration of everyone in the cramped office.

With each customer, the customer service rep would go to a back office and disappear for at least five minutes. I finally got a laugh out of all waiting when I said, "WHAT is behind that door????"

I was dying to know why my name - and a dozen others - wasn't on the board, but to be honest, those fuckers hold all the power, so I said nothing and took my upgrade of a car and got the hell out of Dodge.

Now, since I am a huge fan of pop culture, all I could do was stand in that sweltering hole of an office and smile to myself thinking of a scene from Seinfeld.

Except for Jerry's car being downgraded and mine being upgraded, they were eerily similar.






Song by:  Dido