Many years ago, when we left Scotland, myself, Joyce, Angela, and Ashley flew into Bayonne, NJ.
Our car had been shipped by the Navy some months earlier. It was to be left in a designated long-stay carpark some distance from the main terminal. I was to take a shuttle bus from the main terminal to the distant car park to retrieve our car.
I remember being in the shuttle bus as it pulled away from the main terminal. I saw my family through the large glass windows. I wondered if I would ever see them again.
A similar thing happened today.
We are in Scotland, staying in Dundee, and we had rented an SUV to travel around in as we were accompanied by Jeff, Angela, and Zayne.
They flew back this morning (May 29) from EDI (Edinburgh International), and it had been my intention to exchange the SUV for a smaller vehicle. I had even gone so far in my planning as to turn in the SUV, and I rented a smaller vehicle online for the duration of our trip.
In the meantime, I decided I would prefer to keep the original SUV because I was used to driving it, and it offered some flexibility.
My plan was to go to the rental car return area and drop off the three who were flying home and then see about extending the rental on the one I was currently driving.
It was busy at rental return to put it mildly. One of the attendants told us, “Two hundred cars had come back in this morning!”
Not having a lot of options, I pulled into one of the three long lines of rental cars being returned. I asked one of the attendants how to go about extending my contract. He said I needed to walk some distance to the main rental office and talk to them.
Not yet certain what I wanted to do was even possible, the young man pulled our car into the third row of cars, and I told him I was leaving my wife with the car and he smiled, and said that would be fine.
I hurriedly walked off across the return and pick-up lots of all the rental car companies, wondering if I would ever see my wife again.
Did I mention she had left her cell phone in our motel room, and I had decided not to go back for it, as why would we even need it? So I had no way to contact her.
I finally got to the counter, and the young man printed off some new paperwork, and I was off, back across all the lots, to see if I still had a wife.
She was still there! But by this time, there were three additional returned cars behind me, one of which was broken down.
My young helper came to my rescue yet again by moving the cars around so he could back our car out. Normally, when you pull into a rental car return, you don’t expect to be going back out.
I offered the young man who had helped us so much a generous tip, but he refused and smiled, saying: “It’s my job!”
We were soon on our way back to Dundee.
Haveva great day!
Thanks, Hertz, to your great staff at EDI.