Rental Cars Make James Bond Nervous, Too
"Yeah, I get confused sometimes, but then I think, 'You're an adult with a license to kill. Figure it out!'"
I don’t usually strike up conversations with celebrities, but I ran into James Bond at an Enterprise Rent-A-Car in Manhattan this week and the poor man was so overwrought, I felt I had no choice. He was sweaty, he was manic, and his normally impeccable clothing, which is crisp even after he peels off a diving suit, was pecced.
I had had a long day myself. But if there is one thing that touches my heart, it is a secret agent in distress, so I took the poor man for a drink. It took but one vodka martini, which was less shaken than he was, for 007 to blurt out the truth.
“My rental car drove me crazy,” he says. “It was one thing after another all day. I’m just a wreck.”
“James,” I say, “I can’t believe that you, of all people, get flummoxed in a rental car. The thing that impresses me most when I see your movies is that you can jump into any plane, boat, or automobile and get it from zero to 120 in thirty seconds. You never have to say, ‘Is there a thing where I can move the seat higher?’ or ‘How do I open the trunk?’ You just take off. ”
Bond sighs.
“Oh, Joyce, you are such a naïf,” he says. “That’s only because M spends weeks showing me what to do. When it’s just me in a new car, it takes me forever to figure it out. And today was a particular horror.”
“Okay,” I say. “Tell me everything. No matter how blood-curdling and gory.”
“Okay, “ Bond begins. “I may not look it, but I’m seventy. And decades of being thrown against unyielding stone walls, jumping motorcycles over aqueducts, and sleeping with women decades younger than myself had wrecked my body. Just bending over to pick up my winnings at the roulette table made by back hurt. Then I discovered e-bikes. They got me back into shape, they made me feel young and vigorous. It was like I was in my indeterminate 30s again, boning Miss Moneypenny on top of her desk and she was screaming for it.”
Bond stops, worried.
“Is it okay to say that these days?”
“It should probably be, ‘They were screaming for it,” I say.
“Got it,” Bond says. “But then my co-op board gets panicked about e-bikes causing fires and says I have to get rid of it, so I decide I will rent a minivan, because these bikes are bulky, and take my bike to my estate in Rhinebeck.”
“That is so weird!” I say. “That is exactly what I was doing today! Except for the estate part.”
“This e-bike hysteria is totally out of hand,” Bond says. “The ones carrying the Underwriters Laboratories inspection mark are perfectly safe. Anyway, I was going to rent a seven-person minivan, which would have been $250, but an Audi had just come in for $50 less and the bike fits. There is one annoying thing – the Audi has a half tank of gas, so I need to come back with exactly a half tank or I pay like $5 a gallon for the difference. Already I know this is going to be complicated, but I’m so happy my bike fits, I don’t care.”
The Bond I know is usually faster off the mark but I nod, encouraging him to go on.
“So, I’m heading up the Thruway, feeling good,” Bond says. “I’ve found the Yacht Rock radio station, I’m pushing ninety. Then I notice a red warning light on the dash, like a manic exclamation point, popping on and off. It freaked me out, like is the engine about to explode? Luckily, I’m a mile away from a rest stop. I consider calling the rental place, but then I think, ‘C’mon, you’re an adult with a license to get kill, figure it out yourself.’ I pull out the driver’s manual and I find out this red light is just a warning you’re getting too close to another car. I got to say, I am pretty proud of the way I handled that. They had a Starbucks in that rest stop and I could have gone in and gotten a pastry and I didn’t.”
“Good for you,” I say. “But you said you’d had a horrible day.”
“That was just the beginning,” Bond says. “This car had some strange stuff. For instance, it was tricky putting it in park.”
“But the rental guys must have explained that,” I say.
“They did,” Bond says. “But there was so much information, I didn’t get it all and I was too embarrassed to ask. And then I had that half-tank thing hanging over me all day.”
I’m started to have that Why Did I get Into a Conversation at The Beginning of a Six Hour Flight feeling.
“Uh, James, this story is going to have some death defying close calls and blood shed in it right?” I say. “A six car pile up? A helicopter abduction in which you shove the bad guy into the path of a passing jet and wink at the hot female pilot who will spend the rest of her life fantasizing of what might have been…”
“It was nerve wracking all right, “ Bond says. “I kept worrying about how I was going to fill the tank to the half-way mark all day. I figure the key is finding out how many gallons this tank holds, so on my way back I pull over at a Thruway gas station closest to the city and get out of the manual and I just can’t find it.”
“But you do find Madeleine Swann, your hot shrink with whom you had inappropriate sex during sessions,” I say. “You’d had a bitter falling out after she billed you for those sessions but now the old illicit passion, which is the best kind, is reignited and you do it against the Premium pump. The sex is so hot the pump explodes, setting off a chain of fire-bombs, which you narrowly escape in the rental, which sustains some minor damage. The passenger side is sheared off — ”
“Absolutely not,” Bond says, offended. “I pride myself on returning rentals in perfect condition. What happens is, I spot a construction guy – they know how to work everything. He tells me the tank holds nineteen gallons and if I want to be safe to put in six. So, I get my Amex card and gas up. Then, just as I’m pulling out into traffic, I have the feeling that I dropped my card and you know how it is on the Thruway, it’s miles between exits. You leave your kid there, it’s, ‘Goodbye kid, when you’re eighteen, go to 23andMe and find me.’ ”
“But you do a U turn anyway and drive against traffic?,” I say, hopefully.
“I get off the road as soon as I spot an exit and tear the car apart,” Bond says. “I’m hoping the card’s going to be in my wallet, stuck between my Regal Crown Club and AARP cards, but I can’t find it. Finally, I decide I better call Amex before some guy buys a Lamborghini, but I get the bot and the road noise is so loud it doesn’t understand me…”
“There’s nothing to worry about,” I say. “Amex is very good. They’ll overnight you a card.”
“Yes,” Bond says. “That’s exactly what they said they’d do. But it doesn’t end there. See, after I’m back on the highway, I look at the gas gauge and I see that instead of being a smidge above the halfway mark, where it was when I picked the car up, it’s a smidge below. Though I knew I was supposed to put in six gallons, I put in five. Why would I do that? Where was my brain?”
I am starting to wonder about this myself.
“James,” I say, “I hope this doesn’t sound judgy, but we are talking about a few dollars here. Is the rental company going to care? And even if they do, what does it matter? It’s not like you’re destitute.”
Bond nods in agreement.
“That’s what makes me feel so awful,” he says. “I knew that, logically, but I still wanted that arrow at the mid-way point. Then, to make it worse, looking out the rearview window I see that when I gassed up, I left the tank door open. That’s when you know you’re really in meltdown. So, I get off the highway again, in fucking Yonkers, get two gallons of gas, just to be safe, get lost, even though I’ve turned on Waze, and drive in circles for an hour.”
I am incredulous.
“You did all this to make sure you bring the car back with exactly a half tank?”
“I have kind of an obsessive-compulsive thing,” Bond says.
I signal the waiter.
“Two vodka martinis, shaken not stirred,” I say. “Keep ‘em coming.”
“And some nuts, if you don’t mind,” Bond says. “I’ve had a horrible day.”
We are trying experimentally to grill salmon with an air dryer. Significantly, not "hair dryer." Should this prove a sorry mess, we are prepared to fall back upon Plan B; cornflakes laced with claret. The new comfort food.
Why do I think it was you who got the rental with the half tank of gas? Hmmmmm....