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rabid1stI don't know if I ever told you all about my gift of a stuffed seal to a three-year-old neice on the occasion of my having some spare cash. But...it came to my mind yesterday during a nightmare experience with Enterprise Rent-a-Car. You see...when I told said neice that Sammy had spoken to me in the store...she (experienced 21st Century tyke that she was) started jabbing the seal with her finger trying to make him talk.
It was rather alarming to me...sort of like Guantanamo Bay for stuffed animals. "Talk," she would say with a cute little lisp...then, she would jab the poor mute thing in the ribs or the nose or the googly eyeball.
This scene of torture linked to a firm belief that there must be a hidden mechanism for everything came back to me yesterday when I was forced into a car that was door to door buttons.
Let me explain...
My car is in the shop. It got dinged by someone and needed a little R&R...which meant I needed a rental car. Having had a few experiences with Enterprise before...I knew they could be cruelly inventive when it came to assigning me makes or models of vehicles. Short and claustrophobic as I am...I am often cramped into nearly windowless boxes or forced to climb ladders to get into the cab of something or other.
So...I called a week in advance and said..."I need a rental car. And I just want a car. A car in the same size range as my own. It can be any make or model...just not a truck or an SUV...a car, small to mid-size. Can you do that?"
"We can't promise any make or model," the Enterprise Rep tells me. "But sure, we can get you a car."
"A mid-size car," I insist. And the Rep assures me this can be done.
So, I show up...at the right time...having given them a WEEK to arrange a mid-size car...and sign my papers and follow the fellow outside...and well...it's not a small to mid-size car.
It's the bloody Titanic. "A free upgrade!" The Rep says cheerfully.
A free upgrade to doom!
It's a Lincoln PimpMobile LX or something. I can't even reach the pedals when I get in...I can't see over the hood ornament...I hear foghorns in the distance as I try to navigate into traffic...and there are buttons. So many buttons. And they do so many TRULY bizarre things...like heat your ass or move all of your mirrors to pre-set factory angles (looking up at the headliner and down at the left rear tire). Like...I want to see what the factory worker saw on the day he christened this boat with champagne.
There are no other cars available. It is the Titanic or an aircraft carrier size SUV. So, I get in and the pedals are repositioned up to my tiny little feet by a series of button manipulations. Oh, no! You don't just press one button down...you have to manuever a series of buttons, like I'm some kind of microsurgeon. The seat is moved this way, too. Lifted. Angled. Brought forward and positioned for take off. Ground control to Major Tom.
And the seat moving buttons are located...I kid you not...on the door. In addition, none of these buttons have any pictures or labels on them...except for dashes and arrowheads. There is no little picture of a seat or a pedal on those relevant buttons. And in fact, the button with a picture of a car window...has nothing to do with the car windows as far as I can tell. You put the windows down with one button, then you press another button to turn the window down buttons into window up buttons. Imagine me trying to figure this out at the bank drive-through...then giving up...then getting the windows down only to realize they wouldn't go up again and it was looking like rain!
But worst of all...most maddening of all...when you stop the bloody car...everything re-sets to factory standards. EVERY DAMNED THING! EVERY DAMNED TIME YOU STOP!
Now, I know...should I be the sort of idiot who would ever buy such a ridiculous car...that it would come with about 16 manuals. And I would study these manuals before attempting to drive it home. After studying those manuals...and maybe taking an exam...I would be reasonably qualified to take this thing out on the open road.
Where it would consume so much petrol that I would need to stop at a station every few blocks and refuel. After refueling, of course, I would have to reprogram my mirrors, reposition my seat and elevate the pedals again. But at least I would probably know which of the 120 buttons to push in which order to make all that stuff happen.
I stopped for bread and at the bank and then took the MotherF...Piece of Crap Upgrade back to Enterprise and demanded they get me a real car. After they complied, I went over to my neice's house, borrowed Sammy the Seal and poked him in the ribcage a great many times with a stiff finger.
It was rather alarming to me...sort of like Guantanamo Bay for stuffed animals. "Talk," she would say with a cute little lisp...then, she would jab the poor mute thing in the ribs or the nose or the googly eyeball.
This scene of torture linked to a firm belief that there must be a hidden mechanism for everything came back to me yesterday when I was forced into a car that was door to door buttons.
Let me explain...
My car is in the shop. It got dinged by someone and needed a little R&R...which meant I needed a rental car. Having had a few experiences with Enterprise before...I knew they could be cruelly inventive when it came to assigning me makes or models of vehicles. Short and claustrophobic as I am...I am often cramped into nearly windowless boxes or forced to climb ladders to get into the cab of something or other.
So...I called a week in advance and said..."I need a rental car. And I just want a car. A car in the same size range as my own. It can be any make or model...just not a truck or an SUV...a car, small to mid-size. Can you do that?"
"We can't promise any make or model," the Enterprise Rep tells me. "But sure, we can get you a car."
"A mid-size car," I insist. And the Rep assures me this can be done.
So, I show up...at the right time...having given them a WEEK to arrange a mid-size car...and sign my papers and follow the fellow outside...and well...it's not a small to mid-size car.
It's the bloody Titanic. "A free upgrade!" The Rep says cheerfully.
A free upgrade to doom!
It's a Lincoln PimpMobile LX or something. I can't even reach the pedals when I get in...I can't see over the hood ornament...I hear foghorns in the distance as I try to navigate into traffic...and there are buttons. So many buttons. And they do so many TRULY bizarre things...like heat your ass or move all of your mirrors to pre-set factory angles (looking up at the headliner and down at the left rear tire). Like...I want to see what the factory worker saw on the day he christened this boat with champagne.
There are no other cars available. It is the Titanic or an aircraft carrier size SUV. So, I get in and the pedals are repositioned up to my tiny little feet by a series of button manipulations. Oh, no! You don't just press one button down...you have to manuever a series of buttons, like I'm some kind of microsurgeon. The seat is moved this way, too. Lifted. Angled. Brought forward and positioned for take off. Ground control to Major Tom.
And the seat moving buttons are located...I kid you not...on the door. In addition, none of these buttons have any pictures or labels on them...except for dashes and arrowheads. There is no little picture of a seat or a pedal on those relevant buttons. And in fact, the button with a picture of a car window...has nothing to do with the car windows as far as I can tell. You put the windows down with one button, then you press another button to turn the window down buttons into window up buttons. Imagine me trying to figure this out at the bank drive-through...then giving up...then getting the windows down only to realize they wouldn't go up again and it was looking like rain!
But worst of all...most maddening of all...when you stop the bloody car...everything re-sets to factory standards. EVERY DAMNED THING! EVERY DAMNED TIME YOU STOP!
Now, I know...should I be the sort of idiot who would ever buy such a ridiculous car...that it would come with about 16 manuals. And I would study these manuals before attempting to drive it home. After studying those manuals...and maybe taking an exam...I would be reasonably qualified to take this thing out on the open road.
Where it would consume so much petrol that I would need to stop at a station every few blocks and refuel. After refueling, of course, I would have to reprogram my mirrors, reposition my seat and elevate the pedals again. But at least I would probably know which of the 120 buttons to push in which order to make all that stuff happen.
I stopped for bread and at the bank and then took the MotherF...Piece of Crap Upgrade back to Enterprise and demanded they get me a real car. After they complied, I went over to my neice's house, borrowed Sammy the Seal and poked him in the ribcage a great many times with a stiff finger.