50/50 for 100 miles

Inland Empire Travelog #12
Spokane, Washington - Sat, 15 May 2021. 10:30pm.

Late this afternoon we got a flat tire on our rental car... while 10 miles away from paved roads up in the mountains above Lake Pend Oreille. I changed to the 50/50 spare and got us back down to the highway. Once back close enough to civilization that there at least was cell phone coverage again we started a phone call to Avis's roadside assistance hotline.

"Let's start driving toward Sand Point," I suggested. Hawk agreed. As the nearest town of any size it was the closest place we could possibly get help. If our 50/50 spare did blow out we'd get help faster by being closer to an actual town.

The Long Wait on Hold

Time passed. Ten minutes. 15. 20. We made steady progress even though I carefully limited our speed to 50mph (per the "50/50" temporary spare tire) and kept it to 45mph when safe.

As we rolled up on Sand Point I tried a separate call to the emergency hotline from my phone to make sure Hawk's call on hold wasn't lost in the wrong queue.

My call got the same voice prompts as hers followed by the now all-too-familiar message, "Due to unusually high call volume, wait times are longer than 15 minutes."

Why is it always "unusually high call volumes"? Why are there never unusually high service volumes? Companies clearly aren't planning for their customers' actual needs. They are simply cheaping out on service.

With nothing better to do we stayed on hold. We stayed on hold as we drove toward where help would be more likely. Understand, Sand Point is only a big town relative to what's around it. It has a population of 10,000. That was the biggest population center we'd been to in almost 48 hours since leaving Spokane Thursday night. But ahead lay Coeur d'Alene, a relative metropolis of over 50,000.

Twenty minutes became 30. 40. 50. 60. Finally— a human voice!

On Hold Sixty-Two Minutes... for a Helpless Agent 😡

The agent came on the line 62 minutes after we started the call. We'd driven 40 miles while waiting. With the additional 10 miles before reaching cell range, technically we were at the limit of our 50/50 tire. And we were just starting to get help.

The phone agent collected a ridiculous amount of information before proposing options for assistance. The first option he suggested was that we could go to a tire store, pay for a repair ourselves, and file for reimbursement with Avis. WTF?

"What's the nearest Avis depot we could exchange the car at?" I countered.

"Let me check," he replied. "Where are you?"

Like, dude, shouldn't that have been the first thing? In fact, among the first things I told you was that we're near Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

"Curdoleen, how do you spell that?"

"Coeur d'Alene," I spelled out for him, including the space and the apostrophe.

"The closest stations are in Spokane, Washington," he said, confirming information we'd found on our own over an hour earlier. "One closes at 5pm, the other at 11."

"Well, since it's already 7pm you're saying there's only one that's open," I pointed out. "Will you check with that station to see if they have a replacement car and hold it for us?"

"I can't do that."

"You can't check?"

"I can't see any of the reservations systems. You'll have to go there and talk to an employee."

Fuck It. We're On Our Own.

I thanked the operator for his help and hung up. Including the hold time the call had taken 1 hour 15 minutes. I didn't chastise him over the delay or his inability to do anything because I could tell it wasn't his fault. It was the company cynically cheaping out on customer support.

What did I expect? Compare this: when we got a flat tire on a rental car two years ago the agent at the emergency number was much more helpful. 1) They answered almost right away, 2) they didn't recommend I pay for a repair out of pocket and then file for reimbursement, and 3) they called the nearest rental depot (less than 20 miles away) to verify they had a replacement car for me and ask them to hold it. At the depot the whole staff was nothing but helpful.

"Hey, there's a Kohl's!" Hawk said randomly as she hung up the phone. I pulled off into the parking lot. "Wait, really?" she asked incredulously.

"Sure. We're on our own for the night. We might as well take it easy and get to Spokane well rested." After Hawk shopped clothes for a few minutes we ate dinner at a fast food restaurant. No sense having empty stomachs if our 50/50 spare tire blows out on the side of the highway and we have to wait a few hours for a tow!

I decided to skip the rental depot for tonight and just return the car at the normal time tomorrow. We're staying in Spokane, anyway, and not planning driving tomorrow beyond a short trip in town then the jaunt to the airport. Why waste possibly hours at the depot tonight when the result might be no car is available? 

We pulled in to our hotel in Spokane around 9:30pm. At that point we'd driven our rental car 100 miles on a 50/50 spare. We made it!

Masks in the Breakfast Room!

Inland Empire Travelog #13
Spokane, Washington - Sun, 16 May 2021. 8:30am.

I wish I could say we slept in after an adventurous day yesterday— 5 hikes taken or attempted, plus dealing with a flat tire miles out in the wilderness— but alas we did not. Despite staying up until after midnight watching a movie we'd already seen before (possibly 3 times already for Hawk) we woke up early. Blame the early morning sun pounding through our south facing balcony doors even with the heavy curtains closed.

We took advantage of being up early to check out the breakfast spread downstairs instead of noshing on protein bars, nuts, and fruit in the room. Downstairs we grabbed bagels, turkey sausage, and egg omelet-like things. I'm not sure any of that is better (health wise) than protein bars, nuts, and fruit, but at least it's different from what we've had for breakfast the past few days.

Another thing that's different here is people wearing masks. People obviously aren't wearing masks while they're eating, but everyone was wearing masks both before and after eating. Everyone. Compare that to the past two mornings when pretty much nobody was wearing masks.

What's the difference? Frankly, it's Red vs. Blue. The past two mornings we were in "Red America", areas that voted for Trump in 2020. Campaign signs and banners for Trump were still all over the place even though he lost over 6 months ago. Today we're in Blue America.

In Red America, the recent guidance from the CDC on wearing masks is widely misinterpreted as, "Nobody has to wear a mask anymore." In fact the past two days I heard lots of people in stores and restaurants discussing it that way. "We're done with masks now."

Here in Blue America, people grasp that what the CDC actually said was that people who've been fully vaccinated can stop wearing masks indoors in many circumstances. Considering that only about one-third of the US adult population overall has been fully vaccinated, that means most people still need to be wearing masks indoors. And in some areas, like where we stayed Thursday night, the vaccination rate is even lower. The people who believe the political hoax that Coronavirus is an overhyped political hoax also believe the political hoax that the vaccine is a political hoax. I itched to tell the knuckle-draggers Friday morning, "Three-quarters of y'all need to put your masks back on!"