When you travel a lot, you get to rent a lot of cars. It’s like a week-long test drive with absolutely no obligation to buy and no pushy salesman breathing down your neck. It sounds great.
I’m a “Preferred” customer with Avis. That sounds great, too. But trust me, there’s nothing great about any of it.
Every week, when the Avis shuttle pulls onto the lot and makes that fateful first stop, the driver calls my name along with some cryptic letter-number combination – B24 or C18 or any one of a thousand permutations. The first week, it was like hearing the Bingo caller say exactly the combination you needed to fill out your card.
At this point, though, it reminds me more of that sinking feeling I had playing battleship as a kid. I don’t think I ever won a game of battleship against my brother. And I know I’ve never won against the Avis Shuttle Driver.
This week, in fact, the team at Avis sunk my battleship.
A Pontiac Vibe.
Can you picture me in a Pontiac Vibe? Of course not. No one has ever actually seen a Pontiac Vibe on the road. Nobody has a friend who drives a Pontiac Vibe. And I’m pretty sure there are not many movies or television shows featuring a hero (or villain or village idiot) who drives (or even crashes into) a Pontiac Vibe.
I’m sure there is something redeeming about this car, but I haven’t exactly found what that might be.
Maybe the upside of the Vibe is the office humor it has inspired. The string of laughable vehicles I’ve received over the weeks has generated a lot of good-natured heckling from my co-workers. It’s sort of a running joke. And the Vibe is simply the purest embodiment of a running joke on the road today.
Tomorrow, my week-long, no-obligation test drive comes to an end. I’ll pull up at Avis, clean out all of my personal belongings and walk away completely unencumbered. And just thinking of that moment gives me a really good vibe.
