It's family holiday time again, and as ever my wife has everything under control. All I have to sort out is the car hire. What could possibly go wrong?
It is a warm and beautiful day in London. The windows are open, and from the park over the road I can hear the sound of my three sons playing cricket: the firm smack of willow on old tennis ball, followed by an excited cry of, "Catch it, you dick!"
For reasons that seemed sound four months ago, we have chosen this moment to go on holiday. As usual, my wife has organised almost everything. The arrangements are made, the packing is done and the bags are sitting on the landing waiting for me to carry them downstairs. My only job is to book a hire car, and I have already done this. There is nothing left for me to do but panic. All I need is a reason.
When I go to turn off my computer, I find I have an email waiting for me.
"The car company has cancelled our booking," I say to my wife a few minutes later.
"Why?" she says, looking up from her list of last-minute things to do.
"Because they hate us," I say.
"Hire another one," she says.
"I tried," I say. "No one has any cars." She looks at me for a moment.
"I'll take care of it," she says.
Oh no you won't, I think. I race to my computer, so I can get there before she gets to hers. I revisit all the major car hire firms, and several minor ones. I try different car models. In the middle of my investigations, the printer suddenly judders into life. A car hire agreement starts to inch out of it.
"Done it!" my wife shouts. I pick up the agreement, take it downstairs and hand it to her. She slips it into her clear plastic folder. I am about to ask her if she has remembered the plane tickets, and the passports, and the phone charger, and to lock the back door, but she is already raising an eyebrow.
"Nothing," I say.
Twelve hours later I am standing at the care hire desk, the only one in the airport still open. It is past midnight and the queue is only five customers deep, but it isn't moving. The man at the front of the queue is involved in a passionate discussion with the woman behind the desk. My Spanish is not good, but she could easily be telling him that aliens have descended on the capital, laying waste to the financial centre and decimating the national guard, and that in the circumstances he should probably be content with the three-door Panda. He most heartily disagrees. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse a TV screen showing the local five-day forecast: five little clouds with rain shooting diagonally out of them.
I stand at the back of the queue for over an hour. As each new person approaches the desk, the woman behind it delivers what appears to be the worst possible news, touching off an intense and emotional debate that improbably ends with the woman handing over a set of keys and pointing toward the car park. When it is finally my turn, it is only because there is no one left. The airport is empty.
I step up to the desk and hold out my hand. My wife puts the rental agreement into it and I pass it to the woman, who studies it intently. I wait for the bad news, anxious to hear it in translation.
"Can I take your passport and credit card, please," she says. My wife slaps both into my palm and I hand them over, a little triumphantly.
"And your driver's licence, please," says the woman. She is smiling. There is to be no bad news. I hold out my hand, ready for my licence to land in it. Nothing happens. I turn to my wife.
"I don't know why you're looking at me," she says. "You're in charge of your own fucking licence."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/apr/30/family-holiday-car-tim-dowling
Emmanuelle Vaugier Emmy Rossum Erica Leerhsen Erika Christensen
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