Hertz so good

Hertz so good

Allow me to paint a picture for you.

It is my last day of work. I have decided to treat myself by jumping into the ocean. My hotel is in Florence, South Carolina. It is an hour and a half drive to Myrtle Beach. A few days ago I picked up my car from Hertz in Asheville which is in another state. The next day I am supposed to drive to Columbia, South Carolina to catch my flight home.

I leave my beach bag on the sand and jump into the water. There are some nice small waves and I manage to do a bit of body surfing. Fifteen minutes later I realize I have lost my rental car keys in the Atlantic!

I didn’t want to leave the keys in my beach bag as the rental tag has the license plate on it and my funky surfing shorts from Australia appears to have a trusty velcro pocket. To my own demise.

What next? One more wave. After catching two more waves I hunt around a bit in the sand without any luck. My cel phone is locked in the car. All I have on me is my driver’s license, VRX credit card, and $5 US. For some strange reason this did not seem to bother me much. In an hour this will all be solved and I will be laughing about it. Not quite.

My first task was to call Hertz. But like some crappy reality tv show, you need a phone number, a pen, and something to write on. I walked into some surf shop and an impossibly hot Russian girl with broken English was all smiles and did not understand a word I said. She kept moving closer to me. She is six inches away from me and is staring a hole through me. Why are you flirting with me now? And where were you at the start of my trip?

Success. I managed to use a phone book, plead for a pen from a shop owner loading vegetables from her van, and obtain a napkin from a jovial sweating Italian restaurant owner. He would not allow me to have an unused invoice as these were deemed too expensive.

After calling Hertz it turns out that all I have to do is get the car towed to the nearby airport, jimmy the lock to get my stuff out of the car, and there is another rental car available at the airport. No problem. All I have to do is get the exact address of my rental car, which is about five blocks away and call Hertz back.

After writing down all my car details on my precious napkin, it’s time to find a pay phone. I went to a nearby gas station but it’s ripped off the wall. Nice. I go to the Subway and manage to borrow their phone. After calling roadside assistance, the woman at Hertz asks, “are you in a safe place?” The music is blaring in Subway and probably sounds like I am in a club. Yes, I am in a safe place. I am told that it will take an hour for the tow truck driver to show up and he can jimmy the lock and it is covered by the insurance. Sweet. I use my trusty VRX credit card to buy some dinner.

I proceeded to have a nice little Subway picnic on the trunk of my rental car. The warm sun was still out. There were beautiful palm trees lining my street and all is good. Now here is the surreal moment that made me feel like I was in some old Italian movie. While I am eating, the large Italian restaurant owner speeds by me on his kid’s sized scooter and shouts, “good luck!”. Why did he not say it in Italian? The only thing missing was the soundtrack of accordion music and mabye some subtitles. “Thanks!” I yelled back in English.

The sun is getting paler, lower and the air is slightly cooler. I have no idea how long I have been waiting as I have no watch or cel phone but I now have lots of napkins from Subway. I decide to leave my car and go back to Subway to call Hertz but not before leaving a cryptic napkin note under my windshield wiper in case the tow-truck dude shows up.

I manage to scam the phone again and get a hold of Hertz. It turns out the guy at Hertz gave him slightly wrong directions and the tow-truck guy is driving around in circles.

I eventually find the guy, he jimmies the lock, loads the car on his trailer and we are off to the airport. It turns out he is from Jersey. I told him I photographed some hotels in the Camden area. He said, “Camden? That’s a rough area, it’s close to Philly.” I told him my Brooklawn story about doing some night photographs of a strange bakery and how this brand new shiny black lexus pulls up with some Soparano type character who starts to give me the third degree.

He began to tell me about how last night a seventy-six year old man who worked for Hertz was backed over and killed by a trailer filled with cars. He went into great detail about this. He explained that the trailer had less than six inches of clearance and said the stain on the cement was still there. As we pulled into the parking lot he showed it to me.

Once the car was dropped off, for some reason we could not open the trunk without a key. No worries. All I lost out of the deal was a pair of shorts and one of my mixed CD’s in the CD player. It was a weird mix too. Bjork, Tool, Led Zep, Steve Vai, Yes, and Motley Crue. Music to keep me awake while driving.

Anyways, I get the new soccer mom van and I am off to my hotel. It’s ten o’clock at night and I have never been happier to see a Days Inn. Is there a moral to this story? I am not one to glorify large corporations but if I had been with any rental agency other than Hertz I would be screwed. Also, it is better to jump into the Atlantic for twenty minutes and loose your car keys than to hang around in Florence, South Carolina shopping for pecan logs at Sparky's.