Even with our windows down, we are hot-boxing it to McGaheysville, VA, - against our will - late on a Thursday night. We flew into Baltimore International Airport and picked up our Budget rental car - the last of what they had left - and we were told it was an upgrade. It was a Tacoma truck and we'd reserved a mid-sized sedan. We were tired. Had a lot of luggage. Didn't care. When I opened the door, I thought a skunk had been in the car. We got to the check out kiosk, after squishing all our luggage into the back "seat", and when we pulled up to the checkout kiosk and opened the window, the young man winced - "Please note that it smells like smoke so we don't get blamed." I said. "It's weed," he said. Ah yes, I remember that smell from the 70's! We had to drive 20 minutes to our sleeping destination with all four windows open - this did wonders for my mood as I'd forgotten how exhausting and loud it is to drive with windows all the way down. The car would be going back in the morning. NO way were we going to pay five hundred dollars for five days of this.
My husband called Budget in the morning and - they said all they could offer was for us to go to the nearest Budget and tell them we wanted an exchange. They took no information from us. We drove to Bowie, MD and walked into a room with five tired looking customers. The lovely woman behind the counter asked what we needed and then told us she had no cars and that there were none for many miles around. We asked if anyone wanted to trade a for a truck with a muddy bed decorated with Corona caps (not ours) that smells like a weed dispensary. They laughed and we left.
We drove to Mcgaheysville, for a family reunion, in heavy traffic, with the windows all the way down. I asked my husband to pull over so I could search through my luggage for my inhaler, and I fretted that my son would not want a single one of his six kids exposed to the toxic smell in this truck.
Update. Arrived. Left the windows open all night. No change in the overwhelming smell. All of the adults came out of the house to check it out and noted that they could smell it within five feet of the car. Some are worried we'll be pulled over and arrested. Some think we should break a taillight TO get pulled over and then we can blame Budget. Some think it smells so strong that there must be weed hippen in the side panels. Some think we should call my son's cop friend and have his retired drug dog - trained on marijuana - come and freak out on the car. My daughter-in -law - who is corporate, is outraged, says it's unacceptable and she's going to address it. My sister, who is in San Diego, also corporate, has already been on the phone trying to get us a new car - unsuccessfully as of now. They don't know my sister.
All the kids overheard us talking about hot-boxing, and various old-school names for pot and went out to sniff the car. We now have to define words we were not yet ready to define.
I'm tired and just want a new car AND ALL our money back.
By, the way, my brother - who in the 70's was what we called a "stoner" - thinks the whole thing is hysterical. I don't read more