Hey! I’m driving here!
A New Yorker Outside of New York
Recently, I packed up the family for a week by the sea in Maine, where the lobsters taste better and the water is as cold as a Tito’s martini. It’s a bit of a drive, but the cost of everything is a fraction of what one will find in Jersey and Long Island, so we returned to the fabled beaches of my childhood.
The rental car industry seems to be in a long period of reinvention, to put it politely. The old dinosaurs like Hertz and Enterprise can barely be bothered with much more than propping up their airport branches, which no doubt account for most of their revenue. (The Enterprise nearest me is closed on weekends! Don’t most people rent cars on the weekend?) And newer business models target short-term renters or are basically Airbnb for vehicles. Eventually, we went with a new company called Sixt, with very slick, professional customer service and no-drama pickup and drop-off.
It is my job to pick up the rental car on such occasions and return to the apartment for the near-hysterical we-are-running-late-do-we-have-everything packing up of the car and kids before hooking up Siri to the car’s Bluetooth, figuring out where everything is on each different vehicle (everything is buttons now, everything), and handing out road snacks. Pro tip: A Pringles can fits in most cup holders.
But.
Before all of that, there is a True Moment of Freedom for this beleaguered New York father. I live in Manhattan, and one of the things I love to tell people from outside NYC is that I have not owned a car for twenty-five years. I rent about twice a year for road trips such as this. And when you drive twice a year, it is a revelation. That half an hour or so from the car rental place to our apartment is my real vacation. Windows rolled down, music playing, I drive through the city at a speed and route of my choosing, looking around at the city in a new light. Stopped at the stoplight, I nod at other drivers, smile at the pedestrians—wasn’t I one once? Maybe I will hit a few green lights, who knows, and let her rip for a few blocks, for when I first get behind the wheel, I drive like I just robbed a bank because I have to get it out of my system before the wife, kids, cups of coffee, and breakfast sandwiches invade my ride for the rest of the trip.
Flash forward to a week later. I have driven hundreds of miles, sat in stop-and-go traffic, circled parking lots for a space, missed my turn, almost rear-ended that one guy, got lost on some small-town roads in Maine that were too small even for Siri to find, looked for more parking, sat in more traffic (everything is so far away from everything else out there in the world), paid for lots of gas, dealt with a tire pressure situation, paid to park at the beach, and cleaned out the mortifying amount of empty chip bags, cups, bottles, napkins, takeout bags (I forgot we even stopped at Five Guys) before packing up again for the bittersweet drive all the way back to New York City.
The real traffic begins the closer you get to the Bronx, and suddenly everyone is driving like they just robbed a bank, and that stretch from the Saw Mill Parkway to the West Side Highway is straight out of Super Mario Kart. Everyone has to pee and is debating who gets to go in first as we sit in late-afternoon Manhattan traffic on the way to our block. This is when I love to roll down the window and marvel at how truly fucking loud New York really is, and how I don’t even notice it again after a few minutes.
We unload, check, and double-check every nook and cranny of the car for phones, chargers, and whatever else. Then it is time for the second True Moment of Freedom, and it is not on the drive back to the rental place. When I get there, I park, walk to the counter, and give the guy the keys. I suddenly feel light, for I am done with this expensive machine, this parking-ticket magnet, this gas-guzzling ton of buttons and a backup camera. Thanks for everything and good luck to ya. I am a proper New Yorker again—free, strolling down the sidewalk under my own steam, the late-afternoon sun warming my face as I look for a subway. Or maybe, I think, I’ll just walk awhile.
