I rented a car (actually, a minivan) when I drove from Seattle to LA earlier this month.  I used Enterprise, because I had used them before and found them to be sufficient.  Had I known that the company was full of backstabbing cocksuckers and extortionists, I probably would have gone with Hertz.

As I mentioned, I woke up hungover and late for my flight back to NYC and decided to do something crazy, namely extend my vacation and drive from Seattle to LA.  To repeat, I was hungover.  I was neither drunk, blacked out, nor unconscious.   I had a massive headache and some general body aches, but I could still function mentally.  And at any rate I am a professional at being hungover, so even though it might hurt, I can still get by with my usual grace and aplomb. 

I called and spoke to the guy at the local Enterprise and explained the situation.  I needed to rent a car to drive down to LA.  It was Tuesday morning, and I told him I’d need the car until Saturday morning.  So I’d have it for four full days.  He said it wasn’t a problem.  He arranged for me to be picked up and off to the local Enterprise I went.

I spent the next half hour in the Enterprise office, talking with three different employees.  I spoke to them at length about my plan, which was to drive down to LA in three days, arriving sometime on Thursday.  One of the girls there was kinda cute, so to make myself seem cool, I said, "Yeah, I have some friends in Eugene (lie), so I’m gonna spend a night there.  I also have some friends in San Fran (lie), so I’ll do a night there as well.  Then after that, it’s on to LA."  In reality, I was having fantasies about long sensual showers in middle-of-nowhere hotels and was wondering if they had craigslist (specifically "casual encounters") in southern Oregon and central California, but she didn’t need to know that. 

Feeling full of myself, flush with hungover pride, I jumped when one of the Enterprise employees asked what I’d be doing in LA.  I tried to act bashful and said, "Well, I kinda work there" and proceeded to go into my spiel.  They lapped up the fact that I am mildly famous like the pigs that they are, asking all sorts of questions, which I patiently and (mostly) honestly answered.  However, I did not relay that a website was the root of my fame, for fear that they’d log on right away to see my post about being miserably hungover.  Not that they couldn’t probably tell that anyway, what with me being pale and stinking like Coors Light, but I didn’t want to help them at all.  So instead I focused on the specifics of my trip.  Three days down to LA - a nice, leisurely drive.  A good time for me to see the West Coast and sort some shit out.  They all agreed.   

Soon the car was finished being washed and the cute girl walked me over to it.  We walked around the minivan, checking for any nicks or dents as I looked mostly at her heinie.  She gave me the contract to initial here, here, and here and sign there.  Standard rental car contract: unlimited mileage, a couple bucks extra a day for insurance, and I had to pinky swear that I would only drive the car in Washington, Oregon, and California.  I did all that was asked and handed the contract back to her.  She gave me the keys, wished me luck and I was off. 

And as I wrote in my horribly tedious posts of the past few days, it wasn’t that bad of a drive.  It was long at times, but it was nice to be alone.  I did learn one thing that I forgot to mention: the first car company that puts XM or Sirius satellite radio in their cars will dominate the market.  I did ok with the local stations, but if the car had satellite radio the trip would have been approximately eleven times better.  And I expect a consulting fee of $25,000 from the first rental car company that does this. 

[I also forgot to mention the thing from the trip that I am most proud of: I may be the only human being on earth to have pooped both at the top and the bottom of the Space Needle - in the same visit.  Ben and I went to breakfast where I had a breakfast quesadilla that ran right through me, so when we got to the top, I let loose, all the while thinking how cool it is that I'm pooping at the top of the Space Needle.  We walked around for a bit checking out the views then headed back down when I was struck with another bout of the runs.  So there in the gift shop, I had Poo #2.  Two poos, one at the top, one at the bottom of the Space Needle.  And my mom always complains that I never do touristy stuff when I travel.  Back to the story...] 

When I got to LA, the minivan basically sat in the valet until Saturday, when an Enterprise employee came to pick it up.  Of course, there was a small matter of cleaning the Pringles that had been crushed into the seat, but I was able to take care of that pretty easily (nothing’s sexier than an overweight hairy guy bending into his minivan to clean out the crumbs of potato chips – I can’t believe I didn’t get laid in LA).  I woke up early to meet the LA Enterprise employee, chit-chatted her up while the valet was getting the van (she told me how Bobby Brown once rented an Escalade from them but they had to go pick up because his credit card was denied), gave her the keys, and that was that.  I went back to bed, content that that part of the trip was behind me.

BUT THEN a few hours later I got a call from the head cocksucker in the Seattle office.  Our conversation went:

Enterprise Cocksucker: "Hi Jason – I got a disturbing call from one of our LA affiliates."

Me: [thinking they found a severed hand in the muffler] "Um, ok."

EC: "They told me that you returned the car down there."

Me: "Yeah, this morning. They came and picked it up."

EC: [almost moaning] "Oh, Jason…"

Me: [growing annoyed] "What?"

EC: "You were supposed to bring that car back here."

It took a minute to register, but apparently what this dickhead was trying to tell me was that I had agreed to bring the car back to Seattle.  Of course, I never agreed to this, and I told him so.  He then informed me that he was very clear with me that, yes, this car needed to be returned to Seattle.  I told him in no uncertain terms that he never, ever said this to me.  Never ever ever.  Never.

Then, as they say, it was on.  The Enterprise dickhead told me that Enterprise does not do one way rentals.  In fact, he could only think of one car company that did one way rentals.  This confused me – isn’t this a big part of the car rental business?  You’re telling me that only one car rental company allows cars to be driven one way?  What the hell else do you rent a car for – to joyride around the city?  I made these points to him but realized they were moot (actually, he said arguing about this was a "mute" point, which made me want to strangle him with a sock covered in his own semen). 

The point was that this car had to come back to the Seattle area.  The car could not stay in California, since it had Washington tags.  He told me that he was going to have to get one of his underlings to fly down to Los Angeles and drive the car back up.  Then he told me that I was going to be responsible for that person’s airfare, hotel, and gas on the return trip.  Then, as they say, it was really on.

I’ve never been much for athletic competition, since I suck at sports.  And I’ve never been much for going after ladies, since they usually go away when I try.  But I do have one advantage that brings out my competitive fire: in all probability, I am smarter than you.  I’m not talking about grades, since I spent my time in college getting drunk and fingerblasting and most of high school being awesome, sexually confused, and moping.  I’m not talking about SATs, since I took them once, was content with my score, and said, "Eh, fuck it."  And I don’t care about your advanced degrees - we all know you went to grad school because you didn’t want to work and/or your parents could pay your rent for a few more years.  I’m most likely smarter than you.  And if you cross me, I will shove this fact down your fucking throat.  

It wasn’t that I said anything particularly intellectually groundbreaking to this Enterprise dickhead.  Indeed, even as I was berating him, I knew that I ultimately would lose.  While the cocksucker was laying on me all this new shit which had come to light, I checked the rental contract and sure enough, there it was in the fine print – I had to return the car from the affiliate from which I picked it up.  If I returned it to another Enterprise office, I would have to pay $100 or $.50 per mile "plus related costs as deemed appropriate by Owner", whichever was greater (I think that "plus related costs as deemed appropriate by Owner" is legal jargon for "I’m putting a pool in my backyard because you fucked up").  Seattle to LA is over 1100 miles, so that’s at least $550 I was on the hook for.  And even if I wanted to fight it in small claims court, claiming somehow that I had signed under false pretenses or some other weak argument, I’d have to fly to Seattle to state my case.  So any way you cut it, I was going to pay.

But that did not stop me from letting loose a torrent of hellfire on this son of a bitch.  First, I went with the threats and window dressing, telling him that I would definitely be talking to my lawyers (notice the plural), asking him if he had heard of the law firm at which I work (one of the top three in world).  Then I tried some legal mumbo-jumbo, which I admittedly know little about (but certainly more than Mr. Mute Point), saying that he had coerced me into signing under false pretenses, that I was a victim of extortion, and that I would complain to his manager, the manager of the Pacific Northwest, the national office, the Better Business Bureau, and that I would never, ever go away. 

Then, I got to the heart of the issue: NO ONE EVER FUCKING TOLD ME I HAD TO BRING THE CAR BACK TO SEATTLE.  Again, I was hungover over, but c’mon – this is me we’re talking about!  I’m probably better mentally under the influence or hungover than I am in any other state!  Some of the finest papers I wrote in college were written between bong hits!  When interviewed for my current job, I was worried that the Human Resources person was going to ask, "Does something smell like bourbon and feces?" and I still got the job!  I’ve pitched to rooms full of Ivy League JD’s and television execs while still legally being drunk!  Hell, I once went on a week long coke binge and still helped my then-fiancée deliver our second child, Cody! 

So there’s no way that this jerkoff, with his "mute" points, was going to tell me that he was clear and up-front with me about returning the car.  How was it possible, I asked him, that I sat in the Enterprise office for almost 30 minutes with three employees talking at length about my slow drive down to LA and no one said anything about how I was going to get the car back to Seattle by the time it was due?  I was to have the car Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, returning it at 10am on Saturday.  I said over and over again that I was planning on getting to LA in the afternoon/evening of Thursday.  That means I’d basically have to set foot in LA city limits, turn around immediately, and have one full day (Friday) to drive almost 1200 miles, an impossible task even for the most experienced trucker.  None of the Enterprise employees, the same ones who were chatting me up and asking me all sorts of questions, asked me how I was going to get the car back to Seattle in just over a day.  And I’m not saying it was their responsibility to do so, but when the Enterprise cocksucker tried to tell me that he and his staff were "very clear and up-front" with me about returning the car to Seattle, he was blatantly lying.   

After I had said my piece (peace?), the conversation had no where else to go.  I told him that I (and my lawyers – again, plural) would be in touch and he apologized for the inconvenience.  He lamely offered a truce, asking if I could bring the car to Portland, OR.  He said that if I did that he would personally meet me and we’d forget the whole thing.  Seattle is about 19 hours from Los Angeles.  Portland is about 16 hours from Los Angeles.  So, no, I didn’t think that would work.  I slammed down the phone, went to the mini-fridge, cracked open a can of Bud Light, and flopped onto the bed.

About an hour and three beers later, the phone rang again.  It was the dickhead from Enterprise again.  He told me that he had crunched some numbers and had an estimate for me as to how much it would cost.  The total?  $983.  Nine-hundred and fucking eighty-three dollars.  

I no longer had the desire to argue.  I was working on a buzz and my last spaz-out had drained me.  After Enterprise Dickhead meekly informed me of the cost and what that would cover, I let out a sigh, said "Thank you" and again hung up.  If the mood after the previous call was fiery indignation, the mood this time around was more like crushing resignation.

The bottom line: I owe Enterprise $983.  They extorted me out of this money.  They never told me that I’d have to return that car to Seattle.  Had I known this, I obviously wouldn’t have rented from them.  I was not made aware of that fact and signed the contract.  Sure, I technically should have read the contract, but have any of you actually read a rental car agreement?  I made sure to take care of the big stuff; I knew there was unlimited mileage, I paid for the extra insurance, got the numbers for roadside assistance should anything happen.  But I never thought to turn the page over and read the reverse page and its fine print.  Fucking cocksuckers.

[I originally figured I'd spin this post into "I was hungover and did something stupid."  But the more I went over it in my head, I didn't do anything stupid.  Well, in the end I kinda did, but at least it wasn't because I was hungover.  I just wasn't told of one of the main conditions of the rental.  Fucking assholes.]

While it may be obvious, this is a crippling blow to my finances.  As I mentioned, I haven’t been paid yet for any of my projects and haven’t had a steady paycheck since September.  I’m back at work now, but won’t get paid until mid-March.  The payment for my projects is due any day now, but these things are paid out in percentages and chunks go to the good people who helped me get these deals.  And once I do get paid, I have the simple matter of paying off the ginormous debts I’ve accumulated over the past 4.5 months, specifically those debts accrued at bars when buying drinks for women and telling them I’m famous and rich. 

Prior to taking the trip, I crunched the numbers and figured my West Coast drive would cost around $1500.  This included rental car, gas, hotel, food, booze – everything.  This was going to be tough to pull off, but I figured, "Fuck it – when will I ever do this again?"  Now, between the Enterprise fuck up and the fact that I had to spend two extra nights in LA hotels eating and drinking (airports don’t pay for hotels when weather causes delays), I have to add another $1500 to the trip.  So my financially irresponsible $1500 road trip turned into a financially back-breaking $3000 nightmare.      

There is no hope for me.  My only hope is to write a letter to Enterprise headquarters and lodge all the complaints I can in the hopes that I can either get the $983 ($1000 for dramatic effect) knocked down or somehow get some free service or a free rental car or something.  This is the extent of my counteraction. 

But I compel you, the reader, to NEVER RENT FROM ENTERPRISE.  Learn from me, so that my sacrifice might not be in vain.  While it pains me to think that I can not spend that $1000 on the things that make me happy (i.e. titties), I will be able to sleep easier at night knowing that in some small way I have taken business away from this terrible, terrible company.  They are extortionists and they are assholes and so not worthy of your hard-earned dollar.  With so many rental car companies to choose from, I urge you to look elsewhere for your rental car needs.  Please.  Do it for Uncle Jason.  Because he is a bitter, broken man, but he see potential in you.  And I promise this is the last time I’ll refer to myself in the third person.

******

Thus concludes my trip diary.  We’ve all learned a lot, but three most important things are:

1) Always read the fine print of a contract, because you will get fucked if you don’t.            

2) Never do business with Enterprise, because you will get fucked if you do.

3) Never write any four-part post, because it will get really fucking long and boring.

Now – finally – back to regularly scheduled programming.  And I am so sorry.  So, so sorry.