Damn kids! Get off my lawn--and out of my rental!

The BBQ Pit
1

My wife needed our one car to go away all weekend. This is fine.

Until I got a call from my best friend.

His fiancee of five years left him for another guy she met online, he’s a wreck, so obviously I want to help him get it together. He lives four hours away. He does not have a car.

So naturally, I call up trusty ol’ Enterprise, figuring renting a car for the weekend is a cheap price to pay to help out my best buddy.

“We don’t have anything available, would you like to be on the waiting list?”

What? What do you mean, waiting list? What’s going on?

What’s going on, apparently, is that Enterprise now rents to just about anyone with valid insurance (this was not the case even 8 years ago when I was in school), and apparently the next big thing around here is for college kids to rent cars to drive themselves home for school vacation weekends. Guess when Thanksgiving vacation starts for Penn State students?

What the hell. So what are people traveling over the holidays supposed to do when they get here?

Damn kids should take the bus like I used to have to do, and get the hell out of my rental cars. I can’t really pit the rental companies for starting to rent to younger kids, because I ranted the other way on this issue when I was 19, had a credit card, and couldn’t get a car rental on the other side of an airplane flight for a vacation trip.

I just don’t understand how there can be so many college students who can afford a $60-80 rental car instead of a $30 bus ticket.

2

Last I checked, you can rent a car for like $18 a day from Enterprise, plus an additional $10 a day thing for being underaged.

If I were you, I’d just call some other company, since most don’t rent to us youngins anyway.

3

I wish, but all the rental agencies around here are empty–no cars to rent within 20 miles at this point.

4

Make a reservation like anyone else?

5

Touche. =P Had this not been a sudden situation, I would have done exactly that, of course.

6

Is it any harder for you to take that $30 bus ride?

7

Maybe you can arrange to post your horrific experience with young’uns here.

8

Well four kids can split the cost of a rental car, but they all pay the same price for a bus ticket.

9

ROAD TRIP!!

10

You’re going to Harvard, you mean like on vay-cay? AHHHHH!

11

hehe. You = win.

12

How about trying Priceline or Expedia?

13

Probably harder than it would be for you to actually read the OP and see exactly why he needs the car.

14

Call up uhaul…rent a van

15

I thought the OP said he needs a car to visit a friend who lives 4 hours away to provide emotional support. Did I miss or misunderstand something?

16

No, you didn’t. I did. My apologies.

I had read the OP to mean that he needed the car for more than just getting to his friend’s place. I saw the part about “help out my best buddy” and somehow made the leap that a car was necessary to the actual helping part. I think i assumed that the buddy might need help moving or something.

Anyway, my bad. Sorry.

17

I know your friend is 4 hours away and in bad shape, but would be possible to rent a car for him on his end and have him drive down and stay with you?

18

How dare young people give a shit about visiting family during the holidays? I mean, what next? A car full of young men stopping to help some hapless broke down motorcyclist?* What is the world coming to?

*(Happened to me today. Nice boys.)

19

I’d like to point out that you made a mistake in choosing Enterprise. They’re the only major auto renter that will rent to people under 25, so all the college kids who want cars will go to them. I bet you’d have more luck if you went with Hertz, Alamo, Thrifty, etc…

20

He called the other places. None of them had any cars. See post #3.