Molly's boss Robyn has a beautiful beach house in Larchmont, New York. She was nice enough to invite us up there for the day yesterday. Since we also need to furnish the new apartment, we figured we would combine the trip to Larchmont with a trip to Ikea. This seemed like a pretty good idea and it also seemed fairly simple and straightforward. We sure were wrong...
We figured that we would need to rent a large vehicle to bring our Ikea purchases back with us, but after calling every rental car company in the city, I learned that there were no SUVs left to rent in the New York Metro area. Since we couldn't exactly fit a couch into a Taurus, I made a reservation for a 12' Penske truck. That's what I drove from Ohio when I moved out here and it was a good experience, so I thought I would give it another shot. The only problem was, for some unknown reason, the Penske website wouldn't let me make the reservation online. I had to call the Penske place and reserve it over the phone. It took 5 or 6 calls before I got through to someone, but he was nice enough and I got a pretty good deal on my reservation.
So everything was in place yesterday when we started our day. We had a Penske truck waiting for us, Robyn gave us directions, and we had our ambition hats on. But us being us, we were running a little behind schedule. "That's no problem," I thought. "I'll just call Penske and tell them that we'll be about an hour and a half late to pick up our truck." Here's a paraphrased transcript:
Me: Hi, I have a 12' truck reserved for 9am this morning. I just wanted to call and let you know that I'm running a bit late, but I'll be in to pick it up around 10:30. Is that ok?
Penske: Sure, what's the name?
Me: *Tells him my name*
Penske: Um, could it be under a different name?
Me: No, it's definitely under my name. Try looking it up by my phone number. That's how they found me last time I called.
Penske: Photolight?
Me: What?
Penske: Photolight?
Me: You keep saying that, but I don't know what you're talking about.
Penske: Ok, well, we only have one reservation and it's a business rental for Photolight. So that's not you?
That was the first little hiccup for the day, but he was really nice and told me to just come in when I could and he would have a truck for me. We showed up right around 10:30 and he did, in fact, have a truck for us. We chatted with the Penske guy as he filled out the paperwork and we talked about Ikea, moving, and heavy CRT televisions. When everything was settled, he said, "Ok, so no Henry Hudson, no FDR Drive..." and he started listing highways. Molly asked why not and he told us that we have commercial plates and we're not allowed on any parkways or restricted roads. He asked us if we needed to take any of them. Molly looked at our directions and we pretty much had to take exclusively those roads he named. But again, this guy being really nice, he took us into the back office where they had big maps on the wall and helped us plot a commercial vehicle course. We could make it there, but we had to use I95, which is a hellish stretch of gridlock. Oh well, at least we can still make it there and we have my GPS, so we're fine. Right?
We went out to get our truck and he informed us of the next issue. The seatbelt was broken on the truck and he didn't have any other trucks to give us. The seatbelt still worked, but it couldn't be unbuckled. This meant that in order to get in, I had to pull the belt out as far as I could and then sort of climb underneath it. It was funny looking, but it worked, and he knocked $50 off the price and gave us unlimited miles. It was an inconvenience, but we benefited from it, so it wasn't a big deal.
We set up the GPS and went on our way. It worked out just like we had planned and we were to I95 without too much delay. Then, delay was all we had. I95 was so backed up that we were just sitting there for an hour. Then two hours. It was a painful stretch of highway, but eventually the gridlock cleared and we made it upstate. Since we could no longer rely on the directions from Robyn, we were relying on the GPS to tell us where to go. When we were practically to our destination, the GPS told us to exit into downtown New Rochelle. Downtown New Rochelle was a quaint little town and it seemed like we were in the cute little beach town we were looking for. We weaved around the little streets following the GPS's instructions when we hit traffic. Molly noticed that up in the distance, firefighters were putting out a building fire. We were detoured by the New Rochelle police department right into a traffic jam. At this point we had to laugh. We finally got out of the gridlock of I95 only to find ourselves in the gridlock of a cute little town. That tacked on another 30 minutes, but eventually we got through it and we arrived at the beach house. All in all, it took over 3 hours to go 41 miles.
The beach house was great though. It was right on Long Island Sound, the house was amazing, and the view was spectacular. The original plan was to spend about 6 hours on the beach before heading to Ikea, but because of the delays, we had under 3 hours to relax. We walked out to the end of a pier and sat by the water, we hung out on the beach, and we played with Robyn's kids. (20 months and 3 years. Both boys. Both adorable) Robyn even treated us to lunch at the private beach's snack bar. (Which was surprisingly good) Unfortunately, it was quickly time to leave, so we headed back to the house to collect our belongings, figure out how to get to Ikea without using parkways, and get on our way. Right as we left the beach, a loud thunderclap shook the sky. It seemed about right that we would end up driving in a thunderstorm. I mean, who couldn't see that one coming?
We were even further behind schedule at this point and now our quick jaunt to Ikea was going to be further delayed by the fact that we couldn't figure out how to get to the Paramus, NJ Ikea without taking the Garden State Parkway. Since that was off limits to our commercial vehicle, we decided to just go to the Elizabeth, NJ Ikea which was accessible by the NJ Turnpike. It was further away than Paramus and we had to head back down I95...oh yeah, and it was storming. We got in the car and started to head out, but I realized that I couldn't turn on the headlights. Well, I could turn them on, but they wouldn't light up. I called the Penske place to ask if I was just missing something and they told me to try calling the 24-hour emergency SOS line to see if they could walk me through something. I called the 800 number and I was not a happy guy. We were already so late and this was not what we needed. Here's the thing. This was the only day that the two of us could get to Ikea. Molly has a busy schedule with work and two different theatre things going on. I am about to start working in Connecticut and I was told to expect to be working the weekends. We had to get to Ikea today or it wasn't going to happen. And not going to Ikea wasn't an option. I need to find a short-term subletter/roommate and no one is going to rent an empty apartment.
So I called the SOS hotline and the guy who answered was totally worthless. I told him what was going on and he spent the first 5 minutes trying to figure out if we were in Canada. After repeatedly telling him that I was in New York, I finally asked him why the heck he kept insisting that I was in Canada. He told me: "Well, you said that it's getting dark, but it's 4:30 in New York, so it wouldn't be dark yet. You must be in Canada then." Does that make sense to anyone else? Did I miss that episode of 3-2-1 Contact where they explained that Canada is some dark netherworld where it's always night time and Penske employees aren't completely retarded? (I apologize to actual retarded people. I'm giving you a bad name by comparing you to this guy) I finally convinced him that I was, in fact, in New York. He then spent another several minutes trying to figure out where exactly I was parked at the time. I asked him if he was sending someone out or what he was trying to accomplish. He told me that he was just trying to fill out his incident report and I needed to bear with him. As I said, I was not happy at this point, so I wasn't willing to sit quietly while he filled out his paperwork. I told him that he was not helping and he was making the situation worse by further delaying me. I asked him what he was planning to do after he finished filling out his incident report. He told me that we was going to tell me the closest Penske location so that I could swap trucks. I told him that that didn't exactly help me, but I was willing to listen. Ok great sage of the Penske emergency hotline. Where is the closest Penske location? JFK airport. "Thanks sir" I told him "but JFK airport cannot possibly be the closest Penske. That makes no sense. I'm upstate and JFK is at the bottom of Queens." He was now frustrated with me because apparently no one had ever questioned his all-knowing abilities and he said, "Listen sir, I'm just trying to help you with your problem and this is what it's telling me." I thanked him (for nothing) and told him just to make sure it was noted on my account that I was given a rental truck without functioning headlights. I hung up and started driving. Molly and I debated whether or not we should just head back to Manhattan and give up. We were fine driving through the storm at that point and we were a huge yellow truck, so we weren't hard to miss. We thought it would be best to just head back and play it safe, but as we went, we decided to go to Ikea anyway. The appeal of cheap Swedish furniture was too great to resist and we were going to have to drive without our lights either way we went. It probably wasn't the smartest decision, but at least our parking lights and high beams worked, so we weren't totally helpless.
So we set out on our journey to Elizabeth, NJ, but first we had to scale the Cliffs of Insanity (I95) and navigate through the Fire Swamp. (The George Washington Bridge) It was more gridlock, but this time around we had the extra benefit of it also being rush hour on a Friday. And storming. We somehow made it though. After getting across the GW Bridge and getting to the turnpike, it was a quick drive to Ikea. The original plan was to get there around 5, which gave us a solid 4 hours to do our shopping before they closed. We arrived with under 2 hours. (From this you'd think we were only 2 hours behind schedule, which we were, but we also lost 3 hours of beach time, so we were really out 5 or 6 hours from our original plan) The saving grace of the trip was that we found everything we needed at Ikea. (It was scary for a moment though. One of the most crucial things we needed to buy was a sofa bed and every one was labeled as "out of stock." We finally found a cool futon chair which was labeled as "in stock," but when we asked an employee, he told us it was out of stock too. Exasperated, we asked what they actually had in stock, and he told us our first choice of sofa bed was just mislabeled and they had plenty of them.) So it worked out. We completely furnished the apartment with Ikea stuff and it cost far less than we had anticipated.
We loaded our Penske truck and headed home. I could see enough of the road without headlights that I could drive, (mostly) but I was worried about other cars seeing me. Granted, I was in a 12' yellow box, but still. I decided to drive with the hazards on. This at least made sure my taillights were illuminated. Molly joked that if we had a flashlight, she could hold it out the window to light up the road. Actually, I told her, there was an emergency flashlight in the truck. I took it out of the emergency kit that came with the truck and turned it on. It didn't work. The batteries must have been dead. Seriously? It can't be legal to rent out a truck without functioning headlights nor a functioning flashlight. Anyway, we drove 55 in the right lane the entire way back to the city. For some reason, New Jersey doesn't use their street lights, (which would have been really useful) but we made it back in one piece. Once we got back to Manhattan, driving was fine. It was actually kind of funny. Manhattan is so bright, even at night, that headlights are pretty unnecessary.
We made it back to my apartment, unloaded the truck, and drove it back to the Penske place. It was after hours, so I told the night security/return guy that the headlights didn't work, but his only response was, "Wow, and you didn't get a ticket?"
So there you go. That was our day yesterday. It was one ridiculous thing after another, but we made it to the beach and we made it to Ikea. I called Penske this morning and told them what happened. I told them that it was downright dangerous and, as a simple show of good faith, I didn't think they should charge me for the rental. (I could probably sue them, but I just want my money back) The guy who I talked to said he'd have to talk to the manager when he came in on Monday, but he'd get back to me. I'll update this post to let you know what happens. But the moral of the story? It's probably best to rent a U-Haul or a big van without commercial plates. Oh, and make sure the headlights work before you leave the rental place.
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