My flight into Fort Lauderdale arrived at 12:06am. One of my favorite childhood movies takes place in Fort Lauderdale among other places. Never been to this airport before. It's a big vacation spot, so the rental car company is open 24 hours. I make my way over the Budget car rental area and I see a nice size line. Apparently a few flights were delayed and all arrived at the same time. Budget must have also been running a sale. That's why I chose it several weeks ago. It was a super good price.
Obviously, it's late. People are ready to get their cars and make their way to places like hotels, homes and resorts. For as many patient people, there are impatient people and I think I ran into the most impatient person I've ever met. If this guy sighed once he sighed 73 times. I'm a pretty patient person so I got out my phone and watched some Wonder Years episodes on Netflix, but several times I paused or turned down the volume so I could hear what Mr. Impatient just behind me was complaining about this time.
Again, everybody is just trying to get to where they're going and I understand that, but this guy just kept on going. At one point he faced the rental counter and at a level 8 on a volume scale of 1 to 10 says, "c'mon...I've been standing here for an hour." The rain man side of me knew it had only been 24 minutes. Then he starts to try to get others on his side with this misery loves company attitude, but luckily no one joined in. We made our way to the front of the line and it's my turn so I hand over my license and credit card and get things started. The employee next to me had just finished up so Mr. Impatient ended up next to me again and first thing he says to the employee is, "you guys are just sad, i've been here for over an hour." Only been 41 minutes at this point. He continues to be a jerk and eventually the employee says, "I'm not going to be able to help you if you are going to be disrespectful." This seemed to change his demeanor a bit. He got his car. Often times rental companies don't have the car you requested so they give you something bigger and better. Of course this guy didn't want an suv, he wanted the car he had reserved which is understandable, but c'mon dude. Anyway, maybe this is just me being judgmental, but it made for a fun evening.
Because of same issue I ended up getting free upgraded to a 2012 white chevy tahoe. It's a sweet ride. It's got a button to swing in/out the side view mirrors. It's got heated seats (not so great in south Florida). It's an awesome car and while some might think a 41 minute wait was horrible, for me it was the reason I got a sweet ride while I'm here in Florida. Enjoy your weekend and don't be a jerk because you may get a sweet ride in the process. Probably not....but maybe.
-jay