So I hopped on the Web and made a reservation. A $29.95 rental fee, plus a five-dollar service fee (why not just go ahead and advertise a $34.95 rental?), plus 69 cents per mile. Okay, seems easy enough. Until they call me back to confirm my reservation and tell me I’ll have to go to a town 45 miles away to get the truck. (I’ll end up returning it there as well.) Um, no! At 69c/mile it’ll cost more than the rental, and I’m looking at about five miles between old place and new place. No! Not gonna do it. So I called them back to cancel that reservation. No problem, I’m told. Then I got the third degree from the rep, asking how I’d be moving my goods.

Wednesday I stopped by a second local U-Haul shop (same town) and explained my situation. The fella there tells em to call up U-Haul and make the reservation, and to tell them that I want to pick it up at this location. I get home, call U-Haul, and make the reservation. That goes well enough, but when I told them the location where I wanted to pick up the truck, the reservation guy says “that location’s not in our system.” He offers to let me pick up the truck at the first location, which works out fine for me. So for $29.95, plus the $5 “service fee,” plus tax, I should be on my way. Nice! Until I get a call back to confirm, telling me that I’ll be going to a town 20 miles down the road for pickup and return. I don’t think so, folks, not at 69c/mile.

So on Thursday I stopped by the second in-town location again and made a reservation there, to be picked up there. The fella gave me a contract number and all was well. I told him I’d be there on Saturday at 9 to pick it up. That’s perfect, he says. Then I called to cancel the second (20-miles-away) reservation. No problem, I’m told.

Drove by on Friday evening and saw two trucks sitting there. Looks good, right? So we arrive at 9:15 on Saturday to pick up the truck. The fella who made my reservation isn’t there, and another (I’ll call him Joe, as I don’t remember his real name) offers to help. But he can’t find the reservation.

Now it sounds like a Seinfeld episode. “So you know how to make the reservation, but you don’t know how to keep the reservation!” Joe goes on to say that he’s got a reservation in the system, but under another name. A quick look outside shows two trucks. So we do the math: Joe’s got one reservation, and two trucks. “Rent me the other truck, please!”

It took an hour to get through the rental process, most of it spent watching Joe talk on the phone to someone else who was helping him walk through the process. (Clearly, U-Haul should spend some effort on training.) While we’re waiting, the shop 20 miles away calls. “Hey, buddy, you gonna come pick up this truck today?” “Um, no, I canceled that reservation by phone on Thursday.” “Oh, okay.”
So for $39.95 (bigger truck) I should be on my way, right? No! It’s $39.95, plus a minimum mileage charge (fifty miles) of $34.50, plus $7.45 in tax. Total: $81.90. I’m told the mileage will be pro-rated upon return of the truck. I can handle that.

Six hours later, as planned, I return the truck. And it takes 20 minutes to get it checked back in. Upon check-in, I receive the second part of the “Contract Receipt.” (The shop kept the first part.) This page shows they charged my credit card $105. Um, fellas? The fee we agreed upon at the time of pickup was $81.90. Where’s this other $23.10 come from? When it all boils down, I paid $59.13 (39.95 rent + 13.80 mileage + 5.38 in tax).

I can’t complain much on the final total, as it netted out correctly, but why was I charged the extra $23.10 to begin with? And what the heck happened to the reservation I made in person? And why does U-Haul still assert that I owe them two $5 service fees? (I’m hoping those will disappear before my credit card statement arrives, but not counting on it.)
Renting and returning the truck was more hassle than moving the goods.

Oh, and then there’s the little whiny blonde who was peeved at me for parking a moving truck in the parking lot where she wanted to drive. Look, chickadee, the space between this truck and the curb is about eight feet. If you can’t get your little convertible through that hole, then perhaps you should either give up driving or take up some lessons. And then she wanted to shout at me. “It would be nice if I didn’t have to carry all this $#it all this way to my apartment!” Well, sweetie, would you rather carry all the stuff we’re carrying? And gee, we’ve inconvenienced you so much by having you walk a whopping 25 yards from your car to your apartment. Crybaby.

(Why couldn’t she be more like the cutie who actually offered to help us with things?)

But Mama is moved now, and happy as a clam in her new place. That’s worth all the hassle.

That’s what we need: Cindy Sheehan in office.

To quote Al Borland, “I don’t think so, Tim.”

One more thing on the list of things I don’t understand.

So I called tech support. Nice guys they are, and they offer 24/7 help. Great! But they can’t help. The tech fellas tried to help, saying that my setup was correct. Well, okay, if it’s correct then why can’t I use the account? Well, gee, they say. Perhaps I need to download a different email program. Huh? What? Shouldn’t this be sort of universal?

Okay, so I downloaded Eudora and plug in the settings I was given. No go. Grrr. Call up tech support again and give ‘em the news. Well, then it’s a question of whether I’m on DSL or dial-up, and whether or not their service is my ISP. Huh? I’m no wizard (after all, that’s why I’m having the client’s ISP set this up for me rather than hosting it all myself), but I don’t think the ISP or the modem really makes a difference. Grrr.

So after two more hours of this, I called up Uncle Wiggly, who was able to solve the problem for me in about fifteen minutes. (Thanks!) As it turns out, the field called “user” requires not just the user’s name, but the user’s entire email address.

Gee, I’m thinking. I should call up tech support and tell them the solution. Well, they called this afternoon to see that the issue was solved. But the character who called didn’t seem to care what the solution was; he seemed more interested in the fact that he could close out a trouble ticket. “Well, the important thing is that you’re up and running. If you need any more help, just give us a call. Thank you very much — goodbye!”

Interesting….

Thought by several in response: “If you didn’t leave at 3:00 in the afternoon, you might still have a shot at getting it done.”

Later-exposed truth: the Troll didn’t roll in until after six this morning.

Well-known underlying truth: her Trolliness normally rolls in at 5:30, and spends an hour or so playing PC Solitaire before the crew begins to arrive.

There’s something here I’m just not getting right.

By the way, we bungled up your zipper, fingered your wife’s undies, and just plain didn’t put things back where we found them. Have a nice day!

Grrr….

Free television? Um, if television is free, then why the hell do so many of us receive cable/satellite bills for basic channels? And what’s this about affording to get free television? Huh?
Link:

Thanks to the sorry-ass meth heads, it now takes me (and a pharmacist) ten minutes to buy my allergy meds.  I had to pull a ticket from the shelf (like buying a printer from Office Max), take it to the pharmacy desk, hand over my driver’s license, and fill out a form.  What info from my DL is The Man storing?  And who’s doing the storing?  And how secure is it?  Who knows…  On the brighter side: local law enforcement says that since instituting this policy, meth production is down.  Yay for the Five-O. and society in general, but Boooooo for the added hassle for allergy sufferers and pharmacy techs.

Oh, yeah, I know.  It’s because I dont know enough about WordPress yet.

Grr.