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Festa Italiana
By Milt Abel | March 19, 2011
| March 19, 2011This past weekend I had a private party gig in Redding, California on Saturday and a Casino in Canyonville, Oergon on Monday. The money only made sense if I drove, and driving back and forth between home and each gig was out of the question, so I took off for three days in a rental car to do two nights of comedy.
Let me say from the get-go that a Chevy Aveo is aptly named; Aveo is not a word, therefore it should come as no surprise that it is also neither a car. Not really. Oh, it uses gas, and has a couple license plates, and a windshield; but I have never turned around around after driving a rental for three minutes and asked for an upgrade -until I drove the Aveo. It was like someone had taken a large plastic dish tub and put a seat and steering wheel inside, then began dragging it across the pavement (there was that much pavement noise).
And here’s where I get really chaffed. When reserving the car on the internet the next step in upgrading was offered at less than two dollars a day. When returning 15 minutes after I had driven away in the basin with a rear-view mirror, I was told the next upgrade would be 15 more dollars a day. Not in my budget, and rapacious of Thrifty Rental Car. They should be named Thrifty and Opportunistic Rental Car. That would be apt.
When I reserved the rental, Thrifty’s website listed my choice as a ‘Hyundai Accent, or similar’. I’ve come to the conclusion rental car companies are generous to a fault about what is ‘similar’, and might not even know the meaning of the word. I suspect if you were ever watching Sesame Street and found yourself stumped when they asked, ‘One of these things is not like the other,’ you’re now working for a rental car company. ‘Similar’? Really. How would you feel if I paid you a ‘similar’ amount of money to what we agreed on?
It turned out the road noise softened once I got past that stretch of the 205, and turning up the stereo helped. But I couldn’t shake the impression all weekend that the car’s cab interior was designed more for storage than comfort or ergonomics.
It was a long drive and gas prices these days are… well, to share a joke I’ve used on just a few occasions from my act…
“With the price of gas these days, I got a locking gas cap for my lawnmower.”
But I did have a thrifty experience (notice I didn’t capitalize ‘thrifty’) while enjoying a very nice burrito at Taco Mi Tierra in downtown Medford. I downloaded an app to my smartphone called Gasbuddy and was able to find gas for 15 cents a gallon cheaper than others gas stations nearby -I didn’t wash out the savings by driving 30 miles to get to it. Smartphones are amazing. I discovered another very nice and authentic mexican in Medford on my way back, El Kora at 940 N. Central. ‘Discovered’ might not be the correct word, they wouldn’t let me plant a flag or claim the land for Spain, but it was unknown territory to me until I arrived.
After a 430 mile drive my smartphone directed me to the Shasta District Fairgrounds where my Festa Italiana gig awaited. The Droid X wasn’t smart enough to tell me I was walking into the wrong meeting hall. I bet you didn’t know there was a National Wild Turkey Federation, did you? I didn’t either, until I walked into their regional meeting. I haven’t seen that many variations of camouflage clothing since Ted Nugent had a yard sale; vests, hats, pants, jackets, shirts, shoes, leotards, you name it, it was there and colored to make it look like it wasn’t.
The gig itself Saturday night went great. Here’s a photo of the group as they started to settle around their tables for dinner, about an hour and a half before the show.
Every once in while my job is just out and out fun, and this was one of those occasions. Nice people out to have a good time and I was able to stay out of the way enough, yet offer a joke or two to keep it rolling. Worth the drive.
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