A mixed bag: Rental Car GRRRR! and Book Plugging

[gwendolyngrace]

I'm actually going to plug the book first, because it's much more exciting and happy than the rest of my argh-filled bitching.

Right, so "Bad-Ass Faeries II: Just Plain Bad" is hitting Amazon and other fine purveyors at the end of this month.

The pre-ordering information is HERE:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1892669463/ref=s9_ri_wizard

For ALL YOU AREA PEEPS: I'll be at a launch party and book signing:

Friday, May 30th, 6:30 pm
Generations Gifts
277 Main Street
Oxford, MA

for more information on any of these programs please visit their website www.generations-gifts.com or call 508-987-3310

Oxford is just southwest of Worcester. And Generations is an herbal apothecary and gift shop. Should be fun. I know it's out of the way for Bostonians (especially those without cars) but it'd be great to see folks there.

And here is a Map with directions from my house!

So, Crown. Or more specifically, driving to and from.

I have had the most annoying rental car experience in the history of rental cars. Well, maybe not. But it's about to get worse.

First of, it was a Ford Focus. God, what an unpleasant car to drive. It's not that it didn't perform well or get good mileage (it did both), but yuck. It was not fun to drive it at all. Crappy sight lines, LOTS of vibration through the gas pedal, ALL the controls were backward (like the wipers, which clicked *up* to turn on, and the intermittent dial ratcheted *down* to increase the rate of wipe), and I don't like the console or the cupholder positions or the storage.... And oh, yeah, it tried to make my 7+ hour drive even worse in two ways. First, by eating one of my SCA (and therefore quasi-homemade) CDs. It sucked it in, proceeded to be unable to play it, and then gave me an "Eject Error" every time I tried to eject it. So from Schenectady all the way to Dunkirk (in the rain, most of the way), I had to content myself with radio. Luckily, there's decent(ish) classic rock for that whole distance, but the finding it and the sifting through to find something I wanted to listen to, that would keep me going.

The second way it tried to make my life more annoying was by being really Weird in the headlights department. It was 5:30 by the time I got on the road (already an hour and a half later than I wanted!), but it was still light out. I looked at the dial for the lights (it was a dial on the left-hand side of the dash, not on the steering column) and saw three settings: Off, on, bright. Right?

No. Off, Parking, Headlights. I realized this after it finally got too dark to see (there had been fog in the mountains, and many other people's lights, very odd), and so I realized that I only had my parking lights on. So I turned up the dial. And got BRIGHTS.

Of course, now it's dark, and I'm trying to figure out how to get them to not be high beams. I played with the stick control for the directionals, but I must not have pulled them hard enough, because the high beams didn't go away. It was only after I stopped for gas that I was able to get out the owners' manual and figure out that yes, in fact, pulling the directional toward one (very firmly, apparently) restored one's lights to regular headlamps and not high beams. OY!

Pain in the tuchus.

Joel managed to get the CD out Saturday night. Yay! My technomage. (Of course, on the way back, I noticed that after playing 2 CDs in a row, the CDs were coming out VERY hot. So I took to running the radio for 10 minutes or so in between each CD to cool off the unit. That's not normal, is it?)

Then on Sunday morning, getting ready to leave, the cap on the power supply to the radar detector unscrewed itself and fused to the cigarette lighter. I couldn't get to it and when I tried to pull it out, it burned my finger (ouch. I have three little curvy burn scars on my fingertip now). Which makes sense, given that even with the car off, the radar detector had remained *on*--so there was still current running through. Brilliant. Luckily, Joel was still in the Dunkin Donuts enjoying his coffee, and he came out, grounded himself with his sleeve, and pulled out the cap with pliers. But then I couldn't find the fuse, because it had fallen into the passenger side cupholder (remember how I said I hated the location of those?), and I was starting to freak out because I was, again, about an hour and a half behind the time when I should have left to return the car by its due time. But, I figured - no problem, after all, they gave me a return time an hour and a half *before* the 48-hour mark when I picked it up, and I would make up the time on the drive. Except that now, I didn't have a working radar detector.

So I drove a little more conservatively for about a third of the trip, until I once again stopped for gas, and moved my (now empty) coffee cup, and saw the fuse. Radar detector back in business, I scrambled to get back in time.

No such luck. Traffic and such - and my own better sense even though I really wanted to open up and fly, I'm not comfortable sustaining long bursts at speeds higher than 85/90. I realized (too late) that the reason my return time was so early is that they Close at 4:00 on Sundays. I pulled in at 10 after. Crap. They were already gone.

So I put the keys in the key drop and figured, "Oh, well. Another 30 bucks... not so bad. Wish I hadn't rushed so terribly - we could have hung out a little more in the morning."

Um. I checked the contract. The "Extra Day" rate is more than *TWICE* the weekend day rate. It is going to cost more than the whole rest of the weekend for them to log the car in this morning.

So my $85 rental for the weekend? Will be about $200 by the time they add up all the charges.

And? There was a tiny crack I noticed in the windshield - obviously from road spray, but what do you think the odds are that because I didn't get the limited liability insurance, they'll find me "at fault" to replace the glass?

GRRRRRRR.

Rain aside, it should have been a fun drive, if a long one. As it was, it was 14+ hours, round trip, of just ONE THING AND ANOTHER.

Comments

[roguebitch.livejournal.com]

I've always liked the experience of renting cars just so I can try out other models and stuff, and I rented a Focus once and *hated* it. Everything about it was counter-intuitive. My favorite car I ever rented was an Oldsmobile Alero.

Sorry your experience was so awful -- I hope it doesn't continue to be so even after you returned the vehicle!

[gwendolyngrace.livejournal.com]

Well, I called and they said they got it, no mention of the windshield (which is good, but I'm still waiting for that other shoe...).

I dislike Fords in general and this was just unpleasant from the get-go.

I had a Kia Sorrento for Prophecy last year and it was a dream. I'd really like to test drive the CRV as it's one of my top models of car to buy, but I've never driven it, so might just hate it on driving.

[llywela13.livejournal.com]

Oxford is just southwest of Worcester.
You know, as a Brit, that kind of comment always stops me dead in my tracks. Because my brain immediately presents me with a map of England and starts screaming 'no it isn't! It's northeast of Worcester!' LOL

King John is buried in Worcester Cathedral. Tomb was stunning before the reformation.

/end random

Sympathy for your rented car woes.

[gwendolyngrace.livejournal.com]

Yes, and I'll make matters even worse: the college I went to and its surrounding town were both "Wooster" - not Worcester. But pronounced the same. (However, "Beall" was pronounced "bell" and Bever was pronounced "beaver".)

Heh.