Dear Avis: Love letters from Germany

Dear Avis Rent-a-car,

I would like to thank you for your trust in giving me a Diesel powered Audi A3 while in Germany on business this week. It’s lovely and black and has a key which is a little bit space age. It comes without scratches but with lots of power and oomph which is precisely what you need when you get behind a super slow truck on the autobahn. It has a radio with a great sound system and a CD player, if only I had remembered to bring CD’s. My fault, not yours.

But I would like to apologize. For the record, I do know how to drive a stick shift. In fact, my own car is a stick shift. It’s true, my first car was a stick shift and at that time I barely knew how to drive one, and I did stall it before ever leaving the lot. 4 times I stalled it. Yes, it is embarrassing. Thank you for helping me remember that unfortunate incident. However, within days I was no longer stalling & I was practically a pro on the stick shift! I wish I could say as much for your lovely Audi A3. And for the record, I do drive other peoples stick shift vehicles from time to time, cars, trucks…I’ve had plenty of opportunity to “get to know” the clutch catch points on quite a variety of cars and trucks. However, I have yet to “get to know” this car’s clutch’s catch point. I’m still looking. It’s there, I’m certain of it. I just cannot find it! So far in 2 ½ days of driving this car I have stalled it approximately 27 times. I’m determined I will locate it! I still have nearly a week in which to do so. I hope in that time the clutch does not start smoking wildly and fail me completely, and if it does, dear Avis, I apologize. But mostly I apologize for the fact that you are most likely going to have to replace the clutch after I return this car. I’m sure that being the German arm of an American company you could not possibly understand why I would prefer my little Hyundae over your super-power-high-performance-horsepower-greedy car. I’m okay with that. My little car chug a chug chugs along, and that is cool with me. The best part of it chug a chug chugging along, is that I never ever ever stall it in the process. Ever. Way to go little Korean car…. Don’t get me wrong, the Audi A3 is gorgeous….I’m just not that needy when it comes to cars. Leaving the office yesterday, I was actually a little jealous that the guy pulling out in front of me had a sweet little Volkswagon Jetta.