The other week I drove from Catskill to
JFK in the worst hire car I've ever driven. A compact car, a Ford
Focus or equivalent. A squat, ugly, black plastic and metalic
silver object. I never found out what make it was – there was some
sort of logo in the middle of the steering wheel but no company name
like Chevrolet or Renault or whatever. On the back it had some silly
model name – I think it might have been Sparky but I put it out of
my mind as soon as I saw it because I found it vaguely depressing. I
was standing in the pissing rain in a parking lot at the time. I'd
just been to TJ Max where I'd failed to find a pair of tenable
socks. (I'm sure I once bought some really good socks at TJ Max but
it might have been in England at TK Max.)
To start with I thought the car was a
two door model because the handles for the back door were concealed
in the space where another manufacturer might have put a quarter
light or a bit more window. The thing was little more than a buggy,
though buggy suggests an element of fun
- like a Citroen 2CV or one of those Smart Car things that
Kensington estate agents zip about in.
At least I think they zip about in them
– you see them cluttering up trendy and up and coming London
boroughs, similarly ugly to this thing I hired but with the
jollifying addition of estate agents decals plaster all over the
sides.
Having said that it occurs to me that I
haven't seen one for a long time. But that might be because I haven't
been looking, or because I haven't really been frequenting trendy or
up and coming London boroughs of late.
Anyway, the Sparky, if that's what it
was called, certainly didn't live up to its name. We've got a
secondhand lawnmowers with more zest than this thing. It seemed to
freeze at forty five miles an hour and the only way to get it to go
any faster was to floor the accelerator and keep it there until the
rev counter went off the dial and the motor sounded as though it
might blow up. Then you could get sixty out of it. I managed seventy
on the New York State Thruway. It was a terrifying experience. At
that speed it became apparent that the thing didn't really have any
shock absorbers.
If the Ford Motor Company was aware
that this aberration of a vehicle was being touted as a Ford Focus
equivalent they'd surely bring a lawsuit against whatever company
made the thing. I was happy to leave it behind at the Hertz drop-off
place.
I say happy but...
It was all very unclear – car rental
returns was in a list along with
terminal 1 passenger drop-off
long-term parking
terminal 2 arrivals
terminal five departures
dangerous animal drop-off point
short-term parking
mid-life crisis
airport trauma counselling service
assisted suicide center
It was like reading a telephone
directory.
When I finally got there through the
rain and fog a recorded announcement kept saying Take a note of
your mileage and leave your keys at the control point. Several
other people were dropping cars off and none of them knew where or
what the control point was either.
I left the keys in the car – I'm not
sure that I even turned the motor off. I may have left a door or two
open as well. As I wheeled my trolley stacked with cases and guitars
through the Hertz control point that miraculously appeared when I
followed the signs for Shuttle To Terminals some wag behind
the desk suggested I might stop and play him a tune. I told him to
fuck off. It was quarter past five in the morning.
Here's a tale from last December that I
didn't get round to posting:
I'm in a Welcome Break, on the M42. It
appears to be full of old people eating sandwiches. Old people going
places, wearing body warmers, sensible anoraks, fleeces. I'm drinking
Starbucks espresso. It tastes sour, quite disgusting. I think Costa
espresso is better but it's a
desperate choice.
This is what it's come to – I'm
sitting here at a big pine table facing the window, looking at people
standing around outside smoking cigarettes, and at the car park
beyond. I feel I should get a sandwich to fit in. Or start smoking
again. I don't want to eat an ice-cold sandwich, the thought of it
has me on the edge of tears.
I'm adrift on a sea of bland.
I'm going to Waitrose now. So much
choice. Back in the days of pie, chips and beans we didn't know how
lucky we were. The Blue Boar, Watford Gap, before it became a fast
food multiplex. Stick a 10p piece in the jukebox, get in quick with
Alice Cooper or Mott the Hoople before Sugar Baby Love by The
Rubettes chalked up yet another airing.
I wish I could hear Sugar Baby Love
right now.
All I can hear is the chatter of
hundreds of travellers, it rattles around the metal rafters like
demented baritone birdsong.
I need to leave.
I need to eat.
I'm going to Waitrose.
I wrote that a few hours before I
arrived where I was going and had eleven hours sleep. I felt better
after that. As I left Waitrose, feeling thoroughly
dejected, I realised I've developed a phobia against chilled
sandwiches.
I just thought I'd mention that.
I wrote this as well, just before driving to Glasgow to start my UK solo tourette. Though in fact
I'd already started with a somewhat under-attended show in Worcester
a few days before. It could only get better after that one - the gig in
Worcester showed me that I need to think it out a bit before I stroll
onto the stage. I usually have a better handle on the set but I was
exhausted from dealing with my bank in America and with car hire
firms in England.
I stumbled into an airport car hire
place – Hertz Car Rental at Heathrow. I'd forgotten which car hire
company I had a reservation with so I had to go round them all and
find out by process of elimination.
The woman at Europcar was very nice so
I asked her for a quote just out of interest. It came in at six
hundred pounds for the three weeks I'm here. I thought it sounded a
bit expensive but you know, I'm slightly out of the loop. It included
a free upgrade to a bigger car so I said I'd think about it.
I eventually used a disgusting computer
with a keyboard that was gummed-up with a decades worth of fecal
matter and snot (I think that's what it was) and found out that I was
with Hertz.
I caught the shuttle bus, a risky business – those
things always fill up with big people who've just got off long haul
flights from far-flung places where you can go back packing with a
surf board and four enormous suitcases which they'll later use to try
and break the necks off guitars belonging to other passengers.
The man at the Hertz desk was an oily
boy racer grown old – greasy tendril hair-do with a hint of
faux-hawk and a stubbly beard. He found my reservation by clacking at
a worn out keyboard, sucked air in through his teeth and went dut
dut dut as he tapped a pencil against the side of the computer
screen. Then he asked me to bear with him and got out mobile phone
that he may or may not have been using as a calculator. I say that
because it's quite possible that he was texting a friend – we've
got a right cunt here...
After much screen prodding, dut dut
dutting, sucking in of air through teeth, and a couple of bear
with me's, he came up with a final price for three weeks car hire
of one thousand eight hundred pounds. I was a little taken aback even
though he pointed out that this included an upgrade at no extra
cost to your good self sir.
I'd had a much better offer from
Europcar.
I stumbled out across tarmac and rubble, climbed over a fence with all my luggage and arrived at completely the wrong car hire company. I'd got Europcar and Enterprise mixed up. I caught a shuttle bus back to the terminal and went to see my friend at the Europcar desk.
I stumbled out across tarmac and rubble, climbed over a fence with all my luggage and arrived at completely the wrong car hire company. I'd got Europcar and Enterprise mixed up. I caught a shuttle bus back to the terminal and went to see my friend at the Europcar desk.
I got an electric blue Skoda Octavia.
The interior was heavy with the scent of cleaning products, illicit
cigarettes and takeaway food.
What with the car hire fiasco it took
almost as long to get out of the airport as it did to fly across the
Atlantic.
There's more – there's always more,
but this is going to have to do for the moment. It's probably badly written, disjointed and vaguely uninteresting, but you have to do what you can.
And just before I go, if you live in New York State you can see us on Saturday 22nd February at our own venue, The Homemade Aeroplane, in Catskill NY.
And just before I go, if you live in New York State you can see us on Saturday 22nd February at our own venue, The Homemade Aeroplane, in Catskill NY.
Here's a link, you can read all about it here and book a seat: http://thehomemadeaeroplane.weebly.com/
"dut-dut-dut"! My god, he was using Philip Chester's 'Guide To Fucking Off The Customer'. That's straight out of chapter two. He even quoted the dashes I'll bet.
ReplyDeleteUrp-mazing.
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