Thursday, October 18, 2018

BEWARE OF THE DOG

SeaTac, Washington

We were scheduled for an eight AM flight Saturday, 9/15, so quite early Friday afternoon we checked in at a Motel 6 just ten minutes from the SeaTac airport and rental car return. I decided to go for a little walk, partly to see if there was a nearby gas station. Our car had developed a not so slow leak in the right rear tire overnight Wednesday, and I'd been having to stop and buy air at least once a day. I wanted to overfill the tire when we went out to find dinner, instead of dealing with a nearly flat tire at 5:30 Saturday morning. I didn't find what I was looking for, but I did find this place, which I kind of like. Something about the sky and the trees tells me immediately that we're in the Pacific Northwest, not New England or, say, West Virginia, where you also find hilly land with evergreen forest. I pulled up Maps on my phone and saw that I needed to turn around, or walk for several miles through a probably dull residential subdivision to make a loop of it, so back I went.

In the morning, having pumped the tire up to 40 pounds on the way to dinner the night before, the car told me the tire was down to 17 pounds, so I reported this to the efficient and friendly Hertz agent at the rental car terminal. I also reported that the car's trunk didn't lock. Lock up the doors, and you can still go hit the release and open the trunk. I'd left my carryon bag with the temporarily useless, $2K+ MacBook Pro in the unlocked truck for several nights before discovering the problem. Luckily, nobody else did either. Then I told him how the left rear seatback latch was broken, causing the seat to shake and rattle annoyingly. He rolled his eyes and silently mouthed, "whoops," while entering data into his tablet, before sending me my receipt by email. The Chevy Malibu had less than 6,000 miles on it when we picked up—1,616 more when we turned it in. Rental cars lead a hard life, I guess.

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