[A Note To Readers of Middle Zone Musings: If you've been dropping by for any length of time now, some of you may be thinking to yourself, "Gee, does anything normal ever happen to this guy?" Hey, it's OK; sooner or later that thought occurs to everybody we know. Well, I'm almost positive something normal happened just last week. But hey, who wants to go there? The abby-normal* stuff is a lot more fun to talk about!]

Anyway, yesterday’s post reminded me of yet another, er, odd thing that happened while we were in Charlotte that I just had to share.

When we picked up the rental car at the airport, everything seemed to go well. We had a fairly decent choice: a Porsche 911 Targa, a Tesla Electric Roadster, a Lamborghini Murcielago – oh, and a pokey ol’ Ferrari 430 Scuderia (sound of alarm clock going off – huh? Oh, sorry – must have been dreaming there for a minute.)

Um, yeah -

Well, we had our choice of compact cars, so we picked… something tiny (can’t remember what it was exactly), got our paperwork, and headed to the car lot. Upon opening the trunk, though, we were surprised to find, not a clean, spic-and-span place to put our bags, but a pile of smelly trash! Yuk!

I called the service manager over and he was properly apologetic and all, and immediately endeared himself to me by offering a different, upgraded vehicle – a “mid size”. (It’s hard not to laugh at vehicle descriptions these days. What used to be called “mid sized” is now pretty much a “subcompact” today. *sigh*) So anyway, good for him; obviously keeping the customer happy was important to him (since all I had to do otherwise was move to the next counter).

So now we had this… slightly bigger car, our luggage was safely ensconced in the trunk (or “boot”, as you charming folk across the pond refer to it), and we headed off to our hotel. Or at least that was the plan.

Before we had even made the first 100 yards, the steering wheel started to shimmy, keeping remarkably good time with the entire front end of the car! I stopped and examined the wheels, and sure enough, the right front wheel was canted at a, well, rather creative angle. I assumed someone had forgotten to put the lug nuts on when changing the tire; that’s what it felt like.

Luckily, we hadn’t gotten too far, so I hiked back to the very same service manager and told him the news. I wish you could have seen his face – definitely a Kodak moment. But he recovered nicely and immediately had someone bring us something “full sized”. (I don’t know; that almost sounds like a euphemism for something, doesn’t it?) But what the hey – all we wanted was a working set of wheels here!

Back on our way again (we managed to make it out of the parking lot this time), we headed for the hotel, about three miles away. And we almost made it too.

Yep; you guessed it – about ¼ mile from the hotel, the engine started wheezing and coughing, and suddenly just – died! Drat! But we managed to coast into the parking lot on the last of the car’s available kinetic energy. Whew!

After checking in, I called the rental place again, asking for that same service manager. “You’re not going to believe this,” I began in my best ironic tone, but he managed to finish it for me: “Don’t tell me; your car broke down, didn’t it?”

Once again, he outdid himself. “Don’t worry,” he told me. “If you’ll just hold on, in about a half an hour I’ll have the best car we have on the lot at your hotel. Oh, and thanks for sticking with us!”

True to his word, exactly 32.7 minutes later an agent from the rental desk pulled up in a huge white Cadillac (this was back when a Cadillac was a genuine ‘land yacht’)! She got out, cheerily handed me the keys, and said, “Sorry ‘bout the trouble, folks, have a great stay in Charlotte!” Another car pulled up beside her, she got in, and they drove off, waving.

Now, I wish I could tell you the name of the rental car company, because I’d love to recommend them to you should you ever need to rent a car in Charlotte, North Carolina. Alas, it’s been well over mumblemumble years now, and I’m afraid that particular information belongs to brain cells that have apparently already taken early retirement.

Nevertheless, there’s no reason we can’t learn a few lessons from it anyway, right? (Chorus of “rights” from the audience.) So here goes:

• Attitude (Part 1) – One of the things that impressed us the most was the service manager’s attitude about the whole thing. Not once did he attempt to dodge any responsibility, or brush it off as a minor issue – not even the trash in the trunk. It was a big deal to him, and he demonstrated it in no uncertain terms! It was obvious he appreciated our business, and was going to keep it if it was the last thing he did. To you sir, wherever you are, I applaud and thank you! I truly wish I could do more.

• Attitude (Part 2) – ‘Course, I didn’t go screaming at the guy, either, or get angry about the inconvenience, or otherwise engage in a tantrum. Stop and think about it – such a course of action always results in more trouble, not less, and rarely provides a solution that will satisfy anyone. It immediately puts the other party on the defensive (and they’re already there anyway), it shuts down most communication except the very worst kind, and raises the blood pressure of anyone within hearing. Definitely not good. It just so happens I’m a rather calm fellow anyway, but for those of you who aren’t – well, my advice is, BEFORE you react, take a deep breath, count to ten, or do whatever it takes to get past the moment. THEN do what you need to do.

• Perspective - Y’know, when everything is said and done, there is usually more said than done, there really weren’t any seriously catastrophic consequences here. I mean, we weren’t time-constrained, we arrived at the hotel just fine, and still ended up with a dependable (although admittedly very nice car). But even so, if you step back far enough and look at the situation “from the outside”, so to speak – well, it just really wasn’t anything to get upset about. I think you’ll find that, given the right perspective, probably lots of things we get all worked up about really turn out to be no big deal in the long run. At least, that’s been my experience.

Y’know; when stuff like this happens, there are really only two ways you can handle it: fight it, or roll with it. I don’t know about you, but speaking from experience here, rolling with it is so much better. Save your energy for the things that really matter. Like so much else in life, it all boils down to choice.

OK; now it’s your turn. And whatever you choose – try not to be too abby-normal!

* ‘abby-normal’ is a reference from the movie Young Frankenstein, starring Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman, and a whole cast of well-known stars. If you’re in need a good belly laugh or three, then stop what you’re doing right now and run, don’t walk, to your nearest movie source and rent the thing.