U-Haul Sucks Duck

My Moving With A U-haul Trailer Story

"I will contact you in thirty minutes with an estimated time of arrival from the mechanic."

This is what you hear, read to you from a script, after you first establish contact with U-Haul Emergency Roadside Assistance.

You will hear these exact words 30-40 minutes later.

And thirty minutes after that.

And again, two hours after the tire on your U-Haul trailer has blown out and left your stranded between the Iowa border and Kansas City, Missouri--aka, mile marker 119 on Interstate 29 South, the unambiguous location you gave to the U-Haul rep at least six times in the last ten minutes.

Your cell phone will be drained. The battery, despite having been fully charged before you left on your journey, no match for the analog-only networks between Fargo and Omaha.

Yes. Fargo. Home of wood-chipper body disposal, but apparently, not Verizon cell coverage.

"Can you hear me now?"

Not so much.

Or is it the speech impediment suffered by the U-Haul rep? Right on schedule they say:

"I will contact you in thirty minutes with an estimated time of arrival from the mechanic."

But is sounds like: I wheel contact yew een turty meenuts wit an esimaded time uv arrifal fum de mickanic, or some such.

Your sign that at least you're not speaking to a robot--or did the new Windows Vista release enable robots to mimic ebonics, spanglish, and redneck?--you can't be sure.

 

If this was a real emergency... And now you're getting angry.

You're ready for them the next time they call. After all, it's getting dark, you're parked in the hazard lan of a big rig drag strip, and you're not really sure if any 'mechanics' have been rousted...if there are mechanics in these parts...if the children of the corn are a threat before the corn has been planted in the spring.

"I will con--"

"Wait just a minute!" You interrupt. "I've been sitting here for two-plus hours now, and you keep repeating exactly the same thing to me. You need to stop with the script and tell me what's been done--tell me why I should believe you when you say you've called a mechanic."

[silence on the line] In Windows, this is called a 'hang.' Usually the software program Outlook is involved. Your outlook is bleak.

"Are you there?"

And finally, a response. You imagine a bong being passed, marijuana smoke being expelled. "Yes sir. I will need to ask you some questions."

"Uh, OK."

"Could you give me your name sir?"

"It's the same as it was the last four times you called," you say, and give them the case number.

"And what is the nature of your problem, Mr. Asitwuz?"

"A blow out! For the love of Dog! Nothing's changed since I first called over two hours ago!"

"I'm sorry for the delay sir. I will contact you in thirty minutes with an estimated time of arrival from the mechanic."

At which point you get out of your truck and reexamine your predicament. Maybe it wasn't a blowout. Maybe you collided head-on with a tractor trailer and your soul is wandering around lost in hell.

Nope. Just a blowout. On the U-Haul trailer. Left side, front axle. You do some math: Counting the four truck tires, there are seven good patches of rubber on the pavement. The rim is ruined either way and will have to be replaced. You bought the $45 dollar travel insurance. Driving to the next exit, where there might be a hotel, is feasible. You decide spraying sparks from the already wasted rim for the next ten miles is still safer than getting rear-ended in the hazard lane. Otherwise, they wouldn't call it 'the hazard lane,' but instead, something like the peace and tranquility lane, or, the live long and prosper lane, and people would build condos and have weddings there.

It's at this point, traveling thirty-miles-per-hour with your blinkers flashing that you break out in song:

Home, not home in the plains,

Where steer & stuck travelers play.

Where U-Haul is heard, repeating their words,

'The mechanic will be on their way.' 

You get to the hotel, in this case, a Super 8. Crap.

What? You were expecting a Holiday Inn Express? You wish. Wake up at one of those and you'd be able to crew with Dale Earnhardt Junior at the next Nascar extravaganza.

And speaking of rednecks:

The entire parking lot of this fine establishment is filled with 4X4s and men in camouflage carrying guns. You're not in Oregon, so you figure secret-war-with-Uncle-Sam-separatist-militia-nuts are probably not these guys. That's when you notice all that white stuff swirling around the parking lot isn't a late winter flurry, but feathers. Fowl feathers. These guys are duck hunters.

You grind past Donald and Daffy and an 8" Buck knife getting friendly on a Carhartt-clad gentleman's tailgate. Laughter ensues and you suspect it's aimed at your limping U-Haul trailer--but then why would the laughter have been preceded with quacking?

Ah. That's it: A surviving flock of ducks is buzzing the tower 900-foot Shell gas station billboard, and the Budweiser buzzed boys are mocking them.

[Edifying Digression: Hotels and Motels are graded using an esoteric and little known linguistic coding scheme. The bottom tier of hotels feature a number in their name. The number ('8' in the case of the Super 8 you're staying in) represents the base-10 exponent in a complicated equation describing 'quality.' Motel 6, for example, is approximately 10^8-6=2 or, 100 X's more likely to contain bed bugs, lice, and / or splotchy pillow cases than your featured destination for tonight. An addendum to the base-10 'quality' equation calculation are those hotels or motels designated with a variation of the "Route 66" modifier. Because '666' is the Number of the Beast, and '66' is quite obviously a trick of the devil to discredit the Bible--like the fossil record, evolution, & carbon dating--Route 66 hotels are, in reality, brothels and / or stops on the underground railroad for the under-aged sex slave trade.

Likewise, hotels that feature an adjective such as 'Quality' 'Comfort' or 'Super' are actually meeting places for terrorist cells, as are Dunkin' Donuts, which are owned by the very same people--or so you are persuaded to report by Carhartt-clad gentleman you pass on your way to the front desk to check in.] 

Looking forward to sleep, you decide to update U-Haul with your new location, lest the mechanic they've no-doubt sent for you along the highway reports back that you've patched your wasted tire with bubble gum and continued on your journey.

"What is the nature of your problem, sir?" The ever-caring U-Haul rep asks.

You deftly bypass repeating yourself again by telling the rep to read it from the notes referenced by your call number.

"Of course Mr. Asitwuz. Are you still located at… Where are you located again, sir?"

You bite your tongue and take a deep breath before responding: "Bass Pro Shop."

"Sir?"

"I'm at the Super 8 Motel in Rockport, Missouri, right off the exit. You can't miss it, I assure you."

"Sir, I'm going to need the address."

"I don't know the address, but trust me, the mythical mechanic will know how to find it in the morning."

"Sir, if I don't get an address from you, I can't locate a mechanic in your area to assist you."

You ponder what the official U.S. Post Office formatted address would've looked like for MILE MARKER 119 ON INTERSTATE 29 SOUTH, and conclude that it's no wonder a mechanic couldn't have found you up the road 2.5 hours earlier. 

You snag a business card from the front desk and read the address to the U-Haul rep nice and slow.

"Thank you sir--and is that one or two 'T(s)' in Eight?"

"It's the number 8! After 7, before 9, rhymes with 'ingrate!'" 

"Thank you sir. I will contact you--"

"In the morning," you interrupt, and then hang up the phone and turn it off, confident that no mechanic with a full set of sockets would try to remove so much as a rim in this parking lot full of vigilantes.

At breakfast, you get a call from a tow truck operator, confused as to why U-Haul woke him up in the middle of the night to tow your vehicle to a hotel where he verified you're already at. After explaining the situation to him, and him assuring you that he's seen worse from U-Haul in the past, you convince him to 'borrow' a new wheel and tire from a trailer at the nearest U-Haul dealer in the area, rather than transport a fully loaded truck and broken trailer to a tire shop. He agrees.

Fifteen minutes later, you're on your way, calculating the deductible expenses of this little adventure: 

Super 8 Motel: $35.

Tipping the mechanic: $20.

Vowing to never patronize U-Haul again: priceless.