Several years ago my old friend Brooke returned from a business trip ranting about how much she hated the rental car she was given. It was a PT Cruiser and she could not say enough bad things about this vehicle. In fact, Brooke ranted so strongly in opposition to this car that her story stayed with me for a long time. Now, it also happens my officemate has railed against the crappiness of this vehicle, and while perhaps not with the same vehemence as Brooke, his driving woes certainly served as a cautionary tale.
Fast forward to Tuesday. I’d finally decided to do something about the check engine light that has been glowering at me from the dashboard for quite some time. As long as its amber light remained lit I would never pass the Virginia emissions test, so I took it to a shop near my office. This shop, which came recommended, could not fix the problem. They kept the car for hours and hours and hours and finally called to say, “Hey, so we think we know what the problem is, and what we’d like to do is cut this wire, and ground it off, and see what happens.”
They wanted to cut a wire to the computer that runs the engine. And they weren’t 100% sure what might happen after cutting the wire. WTF?! My options varied from the light would go off and the car would pass the test or the engine might never start again. I chose plan B and took the car into the dealer, but not without first paying $90 for the privilege of having the first shop do absolutely nothing of value.
The dealer couldn’t look at the car until the morning so I was now presented with a few more decisions, like, do I drop off the car and walk home and then telecommute for a day or two? Or, do I suck it up and get a rental? I went for the rental, secretly hoping I’d end up with something fun and/or cool (I’ve always regretted not going for the Mercedes that time in Hollywood, it wasn’t that much more).
I did not get a Mercedes.
Earlier in the year I’d been to Boston and was given a Ford Freestyle, a not particularly impressive vehicle. The Freestyle is one of those hybrid misfit autos that wants to look like an SUV but ride like a car. What you get in the end is crap. And not very impressive crap. I didn’t hate my Freestyle (maybe because it had a nice GPS nav system), but I quickly figured out that I’d never buy one.
I did not get a Freestyle either.
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I began a much longer, way more detailed account of the weekend complete with jokes and nerdy allusions to Star Wars, but it is nearly 3am, and a school night, and so I present instead the following supershortweekendrecap…
