Rent-a-Car, Schment-a-Car

Recently my wife had the misfortune of having her car break down on the highway, while on her way to work. The catalytic converter (as we found out later) was plugged, and the car was inoperable. During the wait for the tow truck, we decided it would be best to rent her a car to use for the day. The dealership recommended Enterprise Rent-A-Car, which had an office right down the street from the dealership. My wife called Enterprise and told them she needed a car, and they said they would have one when she got there. We then followed the tow truck to the dealership, which went very smoothly, (thank you George & AAA). We were thinking, gee, this is all going pretty smoothly, and headed over to Enterprise.

Upon pulling into the chain-link enclosed, razor-wire topped, gravel parking area of the Enterprise 'Office', the mornings festivities began to morph into a quasi-Seinfeldian tragicomedy of absurdity. The building itself could have been plucked from a local farm, one of those pre-fabbed metal glorified sheds. There were suspiciously few vehicles around, save one small car that was obviously being given the old pre-flight walk-around by a customer and an Enterprise agent. "We'll let's see if there is anybody working inside". We went in and were somehow able to locate another employee inside the cavernous structure. (Sarcasm alert). After identifying ourselves, it soon became obvious that there was a problem. There were no cars. No cars to rent. None. It seems to me that this could be a drawback for a rental car company, but who am I to say? The well meaning employee then called the nearest Enterprise office, which was a couple of miles down the way, and inquired if they had any wheels available. Yes, we're told.

So, off we go to Enterprise II. After performing the navigational gymnastics required to actually get to the place (it's adjacent to a MAJOR highway renovation project in the middle of the city) we were pleased to see that Enterprise II was at least an actual building, complete with masonry walls and a paved parking lot. Things were looking up! (Although the parking lot was pretty...um....empty.) Upon entering, we found that we would be taken care of by a new employee who was in training. Oh joy! Fortunately the 'trainer' was right there. The good news was that they could actually rent us a working vehicle. The bad news is all they had was a minivan. The problem with this is that a minivan is much more expensive to rent than a small car. Argghhh!

At this point we were desperate enough to rent an F-16 if they had one available, because we both needed to get to work. Therefore my wife ended up renting a minivan for the day. Apparently this particular Enterprise is minivan central, because when we returned it later the place was overflowing with them.

Some cynics might think we were the victim of some elaborate bait-and-switch swindle, but having been there I can assure you it was what it was.....a dysfunctional car rental company with no cars to rent. If there were any justice, Enterprise would change it's name from Enterprise Rent-A-Car to something like "Enterprise- Rent-A-Car If You're Lucky & If You Give Us Plenty Of Notice & We Aren't Out Of Cars--Could We Interest You In A Van?"