Are you lost? (adrian's home)

So maybe Friday the 13th really does bring bad luck sometimes... We set out for a weekend in Ottawa on Friday, and as I pulled off the 401 just outside of Kingston, the steering wheel made a funny noise, and got really tight to turn... Hoping it would go away, we made for the bathroom, but when we went back to the car, and I popped the hood, there was definitely something leaking, and it looked like steering fluid. We figured it was best to not drive the car at this point, and Dad said that he'd take a look at it if we left it there.

After calling CAA, who offered to either tow us, or put us in touch with Hertz car rentals, we tried Hertz, who was closed, followed by Discount, and Budget. Finally, we got in touch with Avis, who was closing at 7:00PM (it was 6:50PM), and agreed to stay open until 7:10PM, but no later. Having 20 minutes to get into Kingston and to Avis before they closed, we called the first cab company we found in the yellow pages, only to find that the two people who answered the phone at the other end obviously had never left Kingston...:

(me)

(operator #1)

(me)

(operator #1)

(me)

(operator #1)

(me)

(operator #1)

(operator #2)

(me)

(operator #2)

(me)

(operator #2)

(me)

(operator #2)

Guess what I did next? Hung up... And called the other cab company in town, whose dispatcher knew where we were, and sent a cab out for us. Except that by this point in time, it was questionable that we'd make it into Kingston before 7:30PM -- and Avis promised to close at 7:10PM, even after Kelly called back to ask them to stay open.

In the meantime, a gentleman approached us, while I was still on the phone, and asked if we were lost. He asked where we were from, where we were going, explained that he was from Toronto as well, and had a healing therapy center, and that he had all night to give us a ride... Kelly and I looked at each other, and while we were walking through the doors, and thinking, he says, "Well, I don't mind giving you a ride, but we've gotta go now!". At that point, I'm seeing images of being tied up in a barn somewhere, with hay, and Kelly's thinking about being chopped up and left in the forest... So we said "Thanks, but no thanks".

When the cab finally got to the service center, we figured, we won't make Avis, so we'll go into the train station and grab a train to Ottawa... Off we went.

After exiting the 401 into Kingston, my cell phone rings, and the guy from Avis calls back to ask if we're still interested in renting the car -- by this point it's 7:45. I was surprised that they were still opened, and so he said that if we came now, he'd rent us the car. When I hung up, the cab driver agreed to take us to Avis... 20 minutes later, we're at the airport in Kingston, and there's no one at the Avis counter.

To make a long story shorter, the cab driver took us to the wrong Avis location, and we were lucky to be able to get in touch with the store manager who was at home, but agreed to come in. Tim, the gentleman helping us before, had gone home 10 minutes earlier, but forwarded the office phone to the manager's house.

So we managed to make it back to the right Avis, rent a car and make it to Ottawa... But it was quite the evening!

Other than that, we had a good weekend, pretty low key, saw Tony and Jay, Brian, and Anna and Richard, who brought there photos from their year long trip to Australia, NZ, and the far east. Pretty amazing pictures and stories!

Back to work this afternoon!

Are you lost?

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