Why All Rental Cars Reek of Cigarette Smoke

Traveling means different things to different people. To some, it is a mai tai on the beach. To some, it is the rush and bustle of business trips.

For us, when possible, travel is slow, as slow as time allows. It is an exploration. It is a moment of living in this new place even if just for a while–meeting new people, seeing new places, and learning new things. It’s exploring parks and museums, picking up a bit of a language, a snippet of history. It’s about making connections, trying to understand the world better, and when we can, trying to understand ourselves better.

Which is why I have found it disjointing this week to be on a ‘business trip.’ I traveled alone back to our ‘home-base’ to do some ‘work.’

Waiting for my delayed flight, waiting some more. Rushing to catch my connection with a far-to-short layover. Standing in a line and sighing at a not-very-functional car rental kiosk while other customers in the background alternately said, “It’ll never work,” and “Is it really going to work?” with an almost frenetic oscillation between soul-crushing despondency and euphoric, and totally unjustified, optimism.

Finally, arriving to select a car—rememberer when rental car agencies used to assign us cars? Now we have to choose them ourselves (like that is what my life needs, one more unimportant choice–as if deciding between 87 different kinds of toothpaste wasn’t enough…sorry, that’s another story).

Getting in a car, while holding your breath with the anticipation of actually leaving this airport complex before the strike of midnight and realizing how much it resembles the backdrop to the Terminator movie. Realizing that that movie is so old, it was probably set in our current day. Then realizing that maybe we are living in that world and we just don’t realize it yet…sorry, that’s another story).

Hitting the open road—which inexplicably has a bunch of cars on it in the middle the night—taking a deep breath and realizing that your rental car reeks of cigarette smoke.

I nearly convinced myself that it was all in my head, that there wasn’t a persistent and annoying smell of smoke until I found an empty box of cigarettes tucked away next to the passenger seat. Just because I have nothing better to do with my time, I called the agency and told my kindly representative that the only aspect of my life that is not perfect is that my rental car reeks of smoke. The representative assured me that theirs was a cigarette-free fleet. So that was that.

He eventually acknowledged that it was just barely possible that someone had smoked in the vehicle despite their policy. His certainty that creating a specific policy would automatically create his desired outcome was so absolute, he could have been a member of Congress…sorry, that’s another story).

Anyway, he finally offered to give me a discount of like $0.32 or something and assured me that the car would ‘disposed of,’ like it was a sick horse that he would take out behind the barn and shoot in the head. That all seemed a bit dramatic, I’ll never rent that car again. Frankly, I’ll probably never use that agency again either.

That’s the thing about traveling like this, isn’t it? Everything goes by so quickly, speed and efficacy is the only measure, and it is oh-so faceless. There are no names or faces in an airport, and certainly not any conversations. We’re all trying so hard to be somewhere else that we don’t bother being where we are.

Anyway, I just called because I wanted someone to talk to while driving. I’m used to having my whole family in the car with me at all times, usually with many of them talking at the same time. Riding around alone in my rental car that reeks of cigarette smoke is just kinda lonely.