Amber was all smiles. “We’ve upgraded your rental to an SUV,” she said and I was immediately suspicious.
“Why?” I asked blankly, then I realized: “You don’t have the car I reserved, do you?” I said and her smile vanished.
“No,” she said, “and no one wants to rent SUVs anymore.”
I sighed; I’m not used to driving large cars, especially in the mountains in the winter. Amber read my mind. “We should have a Camry available in 6 to 8 hours,” she said brightly. “You’re more than welcome to wait.”
The SUV they gave me was an enormous, red Escalade; it looked like a small fire engine but my partner and I gamely threw our luggage into the hatch and headed north for Wyoming:We had flown into Salt Lake City and had a four-hour drive ahead of us. We were headed straight into the mountains and as the elevation increased, the temperature decreased. Soon my partner and I were getting chilly.
“Guess what?” he said. “This car has electric seat heaters.” He pushed two little button s on the center console. “I wonder if they work,” he said.
It took a couple of minutes, but by the time the interstate turned into a state highway, my seat was toasty warm and by the time the state road turned into a two-lane county road I was uncomfortably hot. “You can turn the seat heater off now,” I said. He did.
He consulted the GPS. “We have over 100 miles on this road,” he said and I nodded grimly I don’t like winter driving and a slushy, icy rain had begun to fall. The “road” was narrow and serpentine; to the left was the sheer, vertical granite face of a mountain. To our right was a steep drop-off into an abyss.
I was burning up. “I asked you to turn off the seat heater,” I said sharply, wiping sweat from my forehead.
“I did,” he protested. “The little light is off.” I looked down and he was right; the heater showed “off.”
“My seat is already cool,” he said.
“Mine isn’t,” I said, shifting uncomfortably in the driver’s seat.
Against all odds, the heater kept getting hotter and twenty minutes later I was on fire from my low back to my knees. “This really hurts,” I said. By now I was trying to lift myself of the seat by digging my elbows into the console and the arm rest on the door. It didn’t work. “And there is nowhere to pull over, ” I said.
“Don’t be a wuss,” he said, reaching over to touch my seat. He instantly pulled his hand away. “Damn, that’s hot,” he said, an understatement: You could have fried eggs on the driver’s seat. He consulted the GPS again.
“There’s a rest area thirty miles ahead,” he told me and I gulped since we were averaging about 15 miles an hour, but I set my jaw and said nothing although it felt like my skin was erupting in angry pustules.
After about 15 more minutes later I saw a small sign announcing a pull-off ahead for a “scenic view” and despite the pouring, icy rain I pulled over. I jumped out of the car like I was on fire, because I was and lifted my sweatshirt; my lower back was the color of a freshly boiled lobster and there were several blisters forming. My partner shook his head in amazement. “You weren’t kidding, were you?” he said and I refrained from pushing him off the mountain.
We still had about a 3-hour drive ahead of us, so in the end I reached under the driver’s seat and pulled out a handful of wires, hoping against hope that one was for the heater. I don’t know what I pulled but the seat, while still uncomfortably hot, was at least bearable. Then, just to be safe, I lined the seat with a couple of sweatshirts and feeling like I had the world’s worst sunburn, we continued to Wyoming.
Once we got to Jackson I went right the to the rental agency to trade cars and I told the agent my story. She was not sympathetic. “Wait here,” she said and left for a long time. She came back with the base manager.
“You destroyed the car’s electrical system,” he said coldly. “You’re responsible for the repairs.”