Throw Me The Keys

Even though I consider myself a fairly well-rounded individual who knows enough about the world to understand most aspects of it, I admit there are certain industries I simply can not fathom. It is not that I don't understand the job, but the need for it is a mystery. One such example is the life of a daredevil. I mean, who exactly decided we needed this to be another human being's job? Look, I understand that back in the day people were very impressed by the idea of someone attempting a stunt they themselves would never want to try. However, that time has now passed and professional daredevils are now working with more safety equipment than your average fire department, so the idiots posting to YouTube are more daring than the professionals could ever hope to be. That is why I no longer think they are necessary and yet every week I see an ad for a new television show where someone is attempting a very dangerous stunt which no one asked them to do and will in no way benefit society. The fact this remains a very profitable way to make a living is really confusing if you ever stop and give it some serious thought. But, I recently had another run in with another industry which is much more common but just as vexing to me - the rental car industry.

To try and make everyone's life easier when I was on my recent trip to Ohio I rented a car. (It doesn't matter which company I rented from because they are all the same. As if to prove this point I rented through Hotwire which showed me the rates for the size car I wanted and it was only after I picked one did they tell me which company I would be renting from.) In this day and age no one even bats an eyelash when you tell them you are renting a car, but that is because I feel like sometimes we forget to see the forest for the trees. If you take a step back and think of how odd the idea of constantly letting a group of total strangers borrow your vehicle is you might find it as strange as I do. I don't even like letting certain people I know drive my truck (perhaps because of how well I know them) and yet here is a company which is going to let a total stranger borrow their vehicle for days at a time and as long as you buy the insurance (which you don't have to do because your own driver's insurance should cover it) and return the car in good shape they don't even ask what you were doing with it. I could have been moving tubs of maple syrup (big in that part of Ohio) or tanks of eels (not as popular) and once I brought the car back with a full tank of gas it would have been all good with them.

I was always raised to take care of my vehicles because they are very expensive investments. That is probably why I found it so jarring that at no point did anyone at the rental office ask how my driving record was. (I often say that I am the only person in Massachusetts who knows how to drive, but they certainly don't know that.) Not that they would care because half the time people are renting a car because their last one is being repaired after an accident. In most situations being unable to take care of your own possessions means people and companies are unlikely to trust you with theirs (there is a reason most financial information stays on your record for 7 years), but how great or bad a driver you are does not impact your ability to rent a car. As long as you have the free space on your credit card for them to put a large hold they are willing to put you behind the wheel. Heck, you can even walk up and down the aisle and pick out the car you want like you are P. Diddy deciding which car in his fleet he feels like taking out that morning. It makes you feel like a bad-ass, you just would think someone at the rental office would want to make sure you had earned that feeling.

Of course, it is not like the car rental companies assume all the risk here because they certainly aren't renting you the cream of the automobile crop. These are clearly the cars they would not mind if they lost because they could then charge you a ton of money and make you buy them a new one. Sometimes I bet they hope you total it. Even worse, I have noticed they have a very annoying habit of roping you in by telling you the best case scenario of car you would get and then subtly add the sentence "Or similar vehicle." This week I was supposed to get a Ford Escape and I ended up driving a Nissan Rogue. Other than a poorly-designed blind spot it wouldn't have been too bad, only this was not a particularly healthy-sounding Rogue. Every time I pushed down on the accelerator I was greeted by a very unhappy pause and the same sound I hear when my nephew pushes his truck along the floor just a little too fast for the wheels. I assume this kind of hard-driving is why most car rental companies turn their inventory over every couple of years and try to sell them to unsuspecting customers. On the surface it looks like a pretty sweet deal to get a 3 year-old car with 30,000 for $20,000 but you just need to remember how tough those miles probably were. That is when it pays to remember that you aren't just paying for the right to take the rental car, you are also paying for the right to give it back.