| | Let Me Out or Let Me In.
There's a thing about rental car's that's unsettling.
In an industry plagued by fuel efficiency, consumer preference, and J.D. Powers trophies and crash safety tests, one thing that has unnerved me is this: where the trunk release buttons are located in rental cars.
I am a rental car customer.
On several, several occasions.
As part of my life sends me romping on one-way trips to and from airports, long term rentals upon arriving at airports in cities old and new, the one consistent challenge I face on those long, tired evenings, further handicapped by general travel weariness, way-too-heavy shoulder bags, and suitcases with lopsided wheels, is how the hell to open the trunk so I can relieve my spine and/or shoulder blade(s) of my luggage.
Even when I had no luggage, this was unsettling (mostly because I was in the middle o' the mountain ranges in China and my luggage was in Las Vegas--I would have preferred the opposite, but duty called...). The non-obviousness of the trunk release just made it that much more unsettling.
It is unsettling especially when it's night and when the keys to the rental car are already in the ignition (because that's customer service).
You see, one is harrowed after hours on a plane eating pretzel packs (with just enough pretzels in it to make you hungry, and just not enough to mock your hunger) and those tiny plastic cups filled with soda (unless you're flying US Airways, in which case, you won't get any of that unless you fork over a couple of bucks and only then, after the air-stewards themselves pitch you credit card deals, mortgage refinancing, weight loss solutions, and pamphlets on how to start your own multi-million dollar online business).
By the time you've deplaned--which means you've actually left the plane even though it landed 45 minutes ago--you are rubbing elbows with other similarly tired and easily agitated colleagues of the sky. Airline crews have had to put up with the complaining, screaming versions of you as much as your elbows have had to put up with getting dislocated by the hurtling beverage carts (some nicer crew folks will warn you, but if your iPod is on, or, heaven forbid, if you're asleep... fuggedaboutit). The airlines are trying their hardest and the whole lot of us: crew, captains, passengers, ground crew..we all just want to go home. It's just that for some of us, "home" means a hotel and getting to that hotel means: a rental car.
And then, since every airport is laid out differently, the location of the rental car area is different. Some have people movers that whisk you away on EPCOT center-esque monorails to the rental concourse. Others have rental car shuttles lined up alphabetically. Others have shuttles located by the taxi stands, but no, not over there by the inter-concourse shuttle. Vice versa. There's the long term parking stops, the public bus stops, the one-way-to-suburbia super vans...
Nonetheless, staying conscious and in a focused state becomes quite taxing after you've been subjected to these mental olympics.
That's why the timing is so perfect, yet so simultaneously humiliating, when, just as you think you're about to head to your hotel, you get to your car in the rental lot and you can't open the ever-loving trunk.
At this point in your delirium, *everything* is blown out of proportion.
Typically, the button or trunk release may be located:
[] in the driver side door handle somewhere
[] just below the ignition switch
[] just to the left of the steering wheel (usually where the dimmer switch and/or headlight switch is)
[] on the panel by the gear shift
These seem the most obvious but I have been frustrated when neither of these most obvious locations become actual locations or, I have to run through my Cycle of Trunk Activation of candidate locations each time.
Is this an issue of design? Or simply an incompetent, bumbling user?
Sometimes you will be successful.
Sometimes you will fail. But hey, the backseat also works just fine as a storage location. Think of it as a cushioned trunk.
Just don't get me started on finding where the universal door lock buttons are.
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| | Posted 11/13/2008 11:47 PM - 14 Views - 0 eProps - 1 Comment
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