I may not be cut out for social functions, social interactions, or social transactions.
I landed in Hartford, CT, this morning and hopped on the rental car shuttle to Alamo Rent-A-Car. They share their facilities with National as I believe one or the other gobbled the other’s tail in a merger and acquisition somewhere along the way. Hell, I’m pretty sure only two rental car companies exist and they just branded themselves differently to avoid the appearance of monopolizing the marketplace.
In any case, the line for Alamo was quite long but they had one of those interactive, self-service kiosks. I had prepaid for my rental via a Priceline.com bid and so went through the whole scanning the driver’s license barcodes and credit card details into the machine and decline all coverages and insurance upcharges before the machine finally spit out my rental agreement. Only when I followed the instructions telling me which lane to pick any car from, there were no cars to be found. There were SUVs, some luxury sedans the size of an overcompensating millionaire’s yacht, but no economy cars. I prefer the economy cars as they’re smaller and get better gas mileage. I’m not looking to zoom around curves like I was on rails; I don’t need rich corinthian leather, or anything more fancy than four wheels, a motor, and a means to start, stop, and lock the car. I don’t even need a lot of pickup so long as the hamsters and my Fred Flintstone feet can power it up to a decent highway cruising speed eventually.
There was no one to help amidst the deserted lot and so I went back inside. Unfortunately, two more shuttle buses had since arrived so the line stretched 10 people deep. There was no option but to wait in line… so much for the convenience of self-service.
When I finally got to the front, Ed, the customer dis-service representative, waved outside and said, “Take any in that row — take that red SUV!” Before I could protest a gas guzzling SUV the CDSR next to him shouted, “No, he can’t have that one — I’m giving that one away now.” Exasperated with his coworker and with my still standing in front of him he scowled at him and said, “Take anything BUT that red SUV in the row.” As I looked outside, I saw two red SUVs in two separate rows and when I queried this he looked at me like I had four heads, all of them unworthy of his attention. “The red Mitsubishi.” Only he didn’t just say it with bold italics. He slow spoke each syllable as in “the red MIT-SUE-BE-SHE.” After an hour standing in a rental counter line holding a rental agreement for a car, I decided to just take whatever car was anywhere on the lot.
Look, I’m not a huge car guy. So all I can tell you is that I wound up with what I think is a POS. I’m sure you’ve heard of the POS car. It’s a piece of sh!t. Gets horrible gas mileage. Drives like a shopping cart with a bad wheel, lurching from side to side. And this is luxury to some people.
In any case, I drove out to Poughkeepsie, NY, where I’m staying the night as it was far cheaper than trying to stay in Rhinebeck, NY, 18 miles away. I Yelp!’ed for a decent pizza place in town and came up with a hole-in-the-wall place heralded as having the best in town special — 2 slices and a can of soda for $5. My Place Pizza, an institution since 1978, features a Pac-Man-ish pie logo, and is located right on Main Street of downtown Poughkeepsie. The place is most assuredly a hole-in-the-wall. There isn’t even a sign out front — just a sandwich board proffering the daily lunch special along with deep fried Oreos and a fluttering red-white-and-blue flag emblazoned with the word “PIZZA” across it.
Entering the place, a large pizzeria man straight out of central casting, asked me what I wanted. I asked for the special and he tossed two slices into the oven to heat them up. He asked if I was from Texas. I said I wasn’t but I knew some folks–before I could finish he said I sounded like Texas. Texas was his favorite state but he’d never been there, one of 6 states he hadn’t been. I couldn’t let that go without a followup and asked what the other five were — Hawaii, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Alabama, Arizona. So all right around there save for Hawaii. I was going to carry on the conversation to pass the time but a young blue-haired girl who was slouched in a booth asked if she could owe the guy for a slice. He said she already owed him for the taxi ride to the hospital last week and the $25 for the cigarettes and peanut butter she bought the other day. They got into a bit of an argument but he finished heating my pizza and handed me a metal plate with my Diet Coke. I sat down and enjoyed the slices… and the ongoing soap opera.
At one point he said he had other things he needed to do in the back and left. She muttered after him that she didn’t owe him anything because the “cigs and PB were gifts, you said.” She left and the two old timers splitting a cheesesteak in the front kept debating the merits of Donald Trump. Our pizzeria bit player returned and noticed the cash register was open and asked the two guys in front if she had taken any money. One guy said he thought she turned around and had some dollars in her hand before she left. I have to be honest, I didn’t see anything; I was just eating my pizza and reading up on the race day parking. That’s not me playing the Prime Directive card, of the observer not wanting to interfere with the normal functionings of what is being observed. That’s legitimately I didn’t see anything. The burly guy ca-CHING-ca-CHING’d the register’s lever a few times and opened the drawer once more, counting the take. It wasn’t short so he assumed if she did anything she just changed out money.
I’ll say this — it was good pizza. But as I strolled back to my car, I noticed two other flag flying pizzerias on Main Street, each offering the same two slices and a can of soda for $5 deal. I can only imagine though that the show program wasn’t as charged as what I experienced.
Debating about how to spend my afternoon, I realized Hyde Park was just a few miles away. I had meant to hit the FDR Presidential Library the last time I was in this part of New York, so this seemed like kismet. In mapping the location, I checked the admission price and felt $9 for the library seemed imminently doable. And yet, when I arrived, the visitors’ desk had a large sign that said admission was $18. I took umbrage and couldn’t bring myself to pay twice as much as what the website indicated and rather than argue opted to wander the grounds… free of charge from dawn to dusk. Franklin Delano Roosevelt actually developed the first ever Presidential Library and it opened in 1941. They were therefore celebrating the 75th anniversary and large banners hung from lampposts along the walkways. I stopped as I’m wont to do at statues and busts to grab a few shots. I tried to seem politically engaged with FDR and Eleanor; with Winston Churchill I tried to match jowls and wits. Whether or not I was successful, I will take the same tact as FDR did — I’ve created this repository so that history could judge for itself.
Cemeteries and gravesites are far from my top picks for places to see and visit in travels, but sometimes they provide perspective and insight into what was and what will be for us all I suppose. I say nothing more than that this is the burial site for the President and First Lady and it’s amazing to think the folks who traveled here in April 1945 to say goodbye just as WWII was moving toward its definitive conclusions in Europe and Japan.
As the gloomy grey clouds finally unleashed a torrent of rain, I headed back to my car. Out of curiosity, I opened up my phone’s web browser and checked the admission prices. Apparently there WAS an $18 two-day ticket listed on the website and you had to ASK for the $9 single entry to the library museum admission. I guess it’s like ordering animal style at In-N-Out Burger. It’s a poorly kept “secret” option and if I had bothered to ask the uber-cheerful ticket seller who wanted me to join the walking tour that was just about to depart as I first walked in, maybe I could’ve gone inside the library. But truth be told — it was a surprisingly small place for a 4-term President. I would’ve liked to say the original “Day That Will Live In Infamy” speech. But I got what I wanted from the exhibits outside. And let’s be honest — this is hard to beat. Of COURSE the local movie theater across the street from the FDR Presidential Library is called “the Roosevelt:”
Thwarted by my own inability to speak to people or to properly understand the machinations and requirements of various elements of social interactions today, I’ve retreated to my hotel room and am settling in for the night. Packet pickup is tomorrow at 6 AM and the race starts at 8. It’s a two loop course and promises rolling country roads on tree-lined streets, as well as views of the Catskill Mountains and the Hudson River.
Things are never as bad as I make them seem in these posts, exaggeration played for hopefully some laughs. I’ll never understand people. And running remains a mystery. But still I try. For as Eleanor Roosevelt said so eloquently:
With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.