Wit's End - Hardcover

It has been said nobody roots for Goliath. But being David can be a hassle.

I have just returned from Phoenix where all our family congregated to celebrate my mothers 90th birthday.

I dont rent cars very oftenso when I am at the Hertz counter at the Phoenix Airport telling them to skip the ripoff extra insurance, I am caught off guard with the question Do you want to buy the gas in the tank? A lot of people dont want to bother filling the tank when they return the car and then we charge $2.95 a gallon to fill it. If you pay in advance, you pay only 97 cents a gallon, and you arent charged for gas when you return the car.

The line is ten deep for rental cars so I am feeling the tacit pressure to move on. But how can I? I am presented with an economic dilemma. Is it smarter financially to take the 97 cent gas, or fill the tank on my way back? Quickly I calculate. To break even I will have to empty about 80 percent of the tank.

I ask how many gallons the tank holds (20), and how much gas costs in town ($1.20 the gallon) and what mileage the car gets (she doesnt know). I guess if there is anything left in the tank I can drink it, I say.

Oh, dont do that, she says. Siphon it out and take it home with you.

I am on my way out of the garage when I notice the green numbers on the dashboard telling me there are 18 gallons of fuel remaining in the tank.

My blood boils. I have been flummoxed by a large (No. 1, remember?) and powerful corporation. The enemy has been identified.

I make the giant slalom up the parking structure and down and in and out, back and forth and I pull into a space and dart out of the car with my papers to the office on the garage floor.

I just paid for twenty gallons of gas in advance and I got only eighteen and Im ticked off!

Im sorry, sir. Ill give you a credit. She gives me my $1.94 credit and I should have felt vindicated. But where is my compensation for the ten minutes this operation stole from my vacation?

The lines are drawn. A side benefit is that I have two gallons less to burn, to bring the guzzler back empty. Think of the poor suckers who buy a tank of gas in advance and return half a tank as a gift to the Hertz Corporation. I am not going to join that coterie of patsies.

First, I am checking gas prices and find that $1.20 a gallon does exist in town, but so does $1.13. Who in their right mind would pay $1.20 for something that was available for $1.13? My break-even point has just been compromised.

Another blow is struck to my cause when my brother, a judge with a reputation for sagacity in these matters, informs me he did not buy the tank of gas. I may have imagined it but I thought I saw a twinkle of superiority in his eye. That news sent me into a funk. I recalculated.

But it is the day before the car is to be returned and I still have 98 miles left in the tank according to the electronic wizardry on the dash. If I dont use every drop, you realize what the mighty Hertz Corporation can do?they can sell my gas twice! That would not only be unscrupulous, it would be un-American. Only I can prevent it.

I take my mother to the airport, gunning it all the way. At stop lights, I leave them in the dust. Ginny, the spouse, suggests our lives are more important than a couple gallons of gas, which only shows how little she understands. Try to keep this obsession of yours in perspective, she says.

Now I have caught on to the intricacies of these gauges and I switch back and forth between Fuel remaining in tank (4 gallons) to Miles remaining (82). I have another 30 mile round trip I figure, not enough to drain the thing. But no way am I giving them 3 gallons of gas which I have already paid forand if you are honest about it, neither would you.

I get to the airport and my heart is warmed to realize my brother almost misses his plane because he is forced to fill his Hertz tank with gas to avoid paying $2.95 a gallon.

Our plane is five hours later. I will let the car idle, that should keep my gas out of the clutches of the malefactors of great wealth.

But think of the oil companies, Ginny says. You are making them richer burning their gas. You have to keep things in perspective.

I let the car idle back at the hotel, and though my nave spouse rails against it, I let the car idle while we are having breakfast.

The rest of the story is, admittedly, anticlimactic except you should know I did triumph over the mighty Hertz Corporation.

We had the car towed back to the airport, but the upside was the gigantic Hertz corporation did not recoup one drop of the gas they had sold me. We were able to catch a plane a mere few hours later, but as I told Ginny, youve got to keep these things in perspective.