2310 Town Car

Monday, March 16, 2009

I've never ridden in a limousine. I don't know that there's anything special about it, but I do feel like I'm missing an experience. Not so much the actual ride as the occasion that would call for it.

Thinking about that reminded me of my one experience with a limousine service. It was the early eighties, and Daughter and I went to England for a few weeks. The flight was out of Kennedy, and it was expensive (and worrisome) to leave my car in the lot that long, and the local rental car companies wouldn't allow one-way rentals. We got a ride to the airport with a friend, but getting home we were on our own. I found a local limousine service that would pick us up at the airport. They offered a stretch limousine for a small fortune, or a "Town Car" for a few hundred.

I chose the Town Car.

When we got off the plane, we saw lots of uniformed drivers with neatly printed signs. And one unshaved guy in jeans holding up a torn piece of cardboard. Took a while for me to realize that it was my name scrawled on the cardboard.

The "Town Car" was a battered old Ford with duct-taped bumpers that spewed black soot out the rear and burped exhaust through the floorboards. I hesitated to go with the guy. I had visions of my uniformed chauffeur lying tied up in an alley next to his stripped vehicle, while this guy abducted the stupid "rich lady". But he had all the proper documents, and the photo matched, and it was 9 pm, and 8-year-old Daughter was asleep on her feet, and it was pre-cell days, and the limousine company didn't answer the one pay phone call I attempted, so I gave up and we went.

I sat in the front so Daughter could sleep on the back seat, and the guy spent the next two hours of the drive apologizing for the car. His personal car was wonderful (a Mustang (which still isn't a Town Car you know)), and he was supposed to use his own car, he's a subcontractor, but he didn't want to put the mileage on it, so he had borrowed this one, and he was sure it was ok with the boss, but he'd appreciate it if I didn't tell him.

I was furious. Even if he did use the other car, it wasn't what I'd paid for.

I was younger and a bit beaten down back then. I should have called the limousine company and demanded at least half my money back, but I just didn't have the energy. I just told all the secretaries who handled the business travel arrangements for The Company.

Heh heh.

If I ever marry again, I want a stretch limousine. Just for the heck of it.
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