Driving Ms. Cynthia

After mud wrestling with Priceline for days I'd finally secured a reservation on a mid-sized car for only $13 a day. It's not that the regular rate was crazy expensive for the few days we would be needing a vehicle. Nor did I outsmart the system. Like with buying wine in the previous post, I simply persisted.

I didn't have long to celebrate my victory before I received an email from our hosts in Atlanta offering us the use of one of their cars during our stay. Since this freed up funds from the budget to share better-than-CVS wine with them I gratefully accepted and cancelled the rental reservation.

The car we were to use was pretty fancy and Tom carefully explained all of its features, including the push button start in lieu of a key. Afterwards we seemed ready to go, so I pushed the button as instructed.

Nothing.

"What's wrong? It didn't start."

"You've got to put your foot on the brake. That's how you start cars with a button."

"Lighten up, bro. Remember, I don't drive."

I noticed a change in Tom's expression as the reality of what I said, that his expensive vehicle was about to be driven away by, well---me, sunk in.

As I fiddled with adjusting the mirrors, seat, and steering wheel he came to the window and asked, "Is everything OK?"

"Yes, everything's fine. Relax, dude. I'll be extra careful, and I've got my co-pilot along to keep me straight."

As I backed out of the driveway Cynthia and I joked that he was probably calling his insurance company to increase the coverage.

Tom also kindly offered us his phone to use for navigation but this we declined. We've never had smartphones and weren't comfortable depending on unfamiliar technology to get us around. Instead we depended on the old fashioned methodology that had served us in the past.

No, not an unfolded paper road map like we used many times before personal computers. I went to Google Maps and printed out directions to each of our destinations. There's something reassuring to us about seeing the entire journey in black and white. Every turn and even the distance between each change in direction is right there in front of you before the trip even begins, as opposed to depending on some chick you've never met parsing it out one piece at a time. Especially when driving in the dark, "In 900 feet turn right on----" is too suspenseful for us.

The great news is that everything worked out just fine. We arrived at each stop on time without ever getting lost. Except that first night we came back to Tom and Brenda's an hour later than expected. I told him with a wink I had a hard time finding a body shop to repair the damage late on a Saturday.

He smiled but-----.