Rip van Winkle Rents a Car

A welcome vacation gets off to a shaky start.

Photo by Yunus Tug for Unsplash

First, my apologies for not showing up in your inbox for the past two Saturdays. It was not my intention to abandon you. Knowing that I would be going on vacation for 10 days,  I selected two previous posts and set them up to be published on those two dates. To my surprise, neither went out to you. Since Substack never makes mistakes, I must assume that I did something in the setup that did not compute, which I regret.

Speaking of the vacation, it was quite wonderful – good times with family and friends, good music , and great food – but getting there was an adventure. I was flying to Baton Rouge, changing planes in Charlotte. But the flight to Charlotte landed 45 minutes late. Once I disembarked, I speed-walked from Terminal A to Terminal E to make my connecting flight to Baton Rouge. I arrived at the gate breathless and five minutes before scheduled takeoff – however, that was ten minutes after the ground crew had seated all passengers and closed the gate. I could see my plane parked just outside. Inside the plane, some lucky standby passenger was buckling into what should have been my seat. Waving my boarding pass at the attendant did not produce the desired result. Sorry, sir, but regulations require blah blah blah. She did offer me a standby seat on the next flight to Baton Rouge – every seat for that flight was taken, she said.

With the assistance of the airline help desk, I upgraded to a guaranteed seat on the next flight. It was scheduled to board four hours later, so I settled down for a leisurely dinner and a stroll or two through the Charlotte airport.

During my wait, I found out why flights to Baton Rouge were fully booked. Seems some entertainer named Taylor Swift was performing in New Orleans the next day, and Swifties were converging on Louisiana by air, ground, and sea.

More Delays

The next flight was delayed too. By the time the plane actually departed, with my four-hour wait stretching to five and one-half hours, I was anxious about my rental car reservation in Baton Rouge. The estimated arrival time was 11:30 p.m. The rental car counter closed at midnight. Given the way things were going, would I be on the ground in time to pick up my car?

Not to worry. The plane landed more or less on time, and the rental desk even stayed open later to accommodate passengers arriving on the delayed flight. It also didn’t hurt that in Baton Rouge the distance between baggage claim and ground transportation is 75 feet.

I filled out the usual paperwork for the rental and  was handed a contract and the key, which was not a key but a remote. The agent directed me to the third floor of the parking garage. It was now about 12:15 a.m.

I looked for the compact car I had requested. There were only two vehicles on the third floor. Neither was a compact. (Thanks, Taylor.) I found the license plate that matched my contract and stepped into the driver’s seat of a Ford Behemoth. It was an SUV of some sort – bigger than a Prius, smaller than a moving van.

As I stared at the unfamiliar instrument panel, several things became clear to me:

1.      The parking garage is incredibly dark.

2.      I have driven only Japanese cars since 1972.

3.      The last time I shopped for a new car was six years ago.

4.      I have no clue how to start the engine.

The dashboard had a button in roughly the same place as the ignition on my Prius. When I pushed it, music flooded the vehicle. Okay, not that one. But I saw no other obvious buttons.

How Does It Work?

Not wanting to spend the night in the Baton Rouge airport parking garage, I returned to the first floor, where one lonely employee was checking out cars as they departed. “Excuse me,” I said, “but I’m from another century and I can’t figure out how to turn on the engine.”

She assured me that there was an ignition button, close to the steering wheel. I thanked her and returned to the car, and with the aid of the overhead light, I found it, right where she said it would be. Now, to put it in gear….There was no gearshift. Instead, there was a circular dial with familiar letters to indicate the gears. I tried to turn it. It didn’t move.

Back down to the first floor and the helpful attendant. I explained the problem. “You have to keep your foot on the brake,” she said. Right. Back to the car. Eureka! It worked!

Now how to turn on the lights? I click the turn signal and wiper wand, to no effect. But never mind – the headlights are already on! Maybe I can figure out how that happened in the morning.

And with the greatest trepidation, I slowly maneuvered the big beluga out of the garage and onto the dark, empty streets of Baton Rouge.

I have now gained the necessary experience to drive a whale of a car – not an experience I sought, but a valuable competency for living in the current century.