So I’ve still been doing the reverse commute to New Jersey everyday. Which still sucks. It’s been the death of this blog. It shouldn’t even be called Amish In The City anymore. It should be called Amish In The State Thats Shaped Like A Big Doodoo.

Anyway, by the grace of God (who I don’t really believe in), and my charming personality and good looks (which I don’t really have), I was able to convince the people at Hertz to give me an Infiniti FX35 (luxury SUV). I’m just kidding. I didn’t really do much convincing…I think the people at Hertz are just idiots. Here’s how the conversation went:

Amish: Yeah hi…I’m returning this Taurus, but I also have a general question for you.

Hertz: Sure.

Amish: When I rent another car, what do I need to do to get a upgrade to a Prestige Collection Car, like an Infiniti G35?

[Prestige Collection cars are the luxury models... Jags, Infinitis, etc]

Hertz: Well we don’t give complimentary upgrades to Prestige Cars. You have to pay for the upgrade if you want it.

Amish: Oh really? How much is that?

Hertz: It depends…but generally about $25-$40 per day…

Amish: [Disappointed because there's no way my company would let me get away with that] Oh. I thought it would be more like $10 per day.

Hertz: What’s your status?

Amish: [Again disappointed] Just #1 Club Gold…

[#1 Club Gold, despite having a very esteemed-sounding name, means jack shit. All you have to do to get that status is pay 50 bucks. Or, as in my case, if you work for a big-ass company that rents from Hertz a lot, they waive the fee. So I did absolutely nothing to earn it.]

Amish: …But I’ve been renting for the last 6 weeks, and still need a car for about 2 more months.

Hertz: [Suspiciously] So why are you returning this car, and when do you need another car?

Amish: [Oops - she caught me. Better just be friendly & honest.] I actually need a car today, and already made a reservation at a different Hertz location a few blocks down the street. I heard they have a bigger selection of cars there and was hoping to get an upgrade there. The reason I brought the Taurus here and not there is because I was afraid that they’d turn around and give me my car back, and as I mentioned earlier, I hate the Taurus. I was really hoping to get G35.

[Yes, I did come up with an entire plan for my Sunday afternoon in which I refilled the gas in my Taurus, returned it to one Hertz location, and then picked up another car (hopefully upgraded) a half hour later at a different location, in order to hedge against the same Taurus. I even purposely planned to drive over to the East Side to do all of this, because there are two Hertz locations very close to each other over there (one of which supposedly has a bigger garage) and I didn't want to have to walk too far between my stops.]

[At this point, I'm thinking there's no way in hell she's going to give me an upgrade. I am admitting to her how I am a scheming pain in the ass to her company. And a big, big loser.]

Hertz: [Pretty much laughing at how big of a loser I am] Oh…well they don’t even have Prestige cars over there. But I can give you one here if you want!

Amish: Really?!?! Here, right now? Can you transfer my reservation over here?

Hertz: Yeah no problem. But I don’t have a G35. All I have is the Infiniti FX35 if you want that…

[Note: FX35 = much better (and usually more expensive to rent) than G35]

Amish: Oh man! Can you still do that for $10 per day?

[Note, at no point in our earlier conversation did she ever commit to that rate.]

Hertz: Sure!

Amish: I’ll take it! Say…. My original reservation was for a full-size car. Is there anyway you can change the original reservation to an economy class car first, and then apply the upgrade to that?

[You know, so that I'm renting this top of the line car thats 10 times nicer than the last one and should be more expensive, but since you are downgrading my original reservation, I'm not actually paying your company any more money for?]

Hertz: Sure! Oh, and this car happens to have our Hertz Navigation System installed too.

Amish: Do I have to pay for that?

Hertz: Um…no.

She handed me the keys and I went over to the car, which is one of the sweetest cars I’ve ever driven.

Its got leather seats that heat up, which I will never use (even if it was winter), because let’s face it, I sweat enough without my asscheeks needing encouragement.

It’s also got a Sirius satellite radio in it. It’s pretty cool because its a lot of commercial free high quality music. Sirius boasts about how there’s such a huge selection in the 150+ stations. But really, its like 145 stations of garbage. Honestly, how many stations of Electronic/Dance music does someone really need?

ZERO.

But they give you around 7.

They also give you about 20 stations worth of weather/traffic for different cities around the US, 19 of which I could really care less about, and the one that matters, I’m never going to listen to.

But I digress.

After picking up the car, I called up Sachin and told him to meet me outside the apartment so we could go cruise the streets.

I punched in my home address into the Navigation System….because the so-easy-that-a-three-year-old-could-understand-it grid system in Manhattan can get oh-so-confusing, especially after you’ve lived there for a year.

I drove the 15 blocks north and 6 blocks west home, and picked up Sachin. Then, as we cruised around, we decided to get some shopping done. Since we were driving in a high-class automobile, we went high-class clearance shopping at the Barney’s of New York Warehouse Sale.

Then, we went for some high-class dining:

Sachin: I’m hungry.
Amish: What do you think will have better parking? 23rd and Park? or 14th St/Union Square?
Sachin: For what?
Amish: Taco Bell.
Sachin: 23rd and Park.

On Monday, I took the car for its first real drive. Yes, I’d driven it the day before around Manhattan, but traffic sucked and I never got it higher than 20 mph. So on Monday, I was finally able to see what this car was capable of.

I almost wrecked the car in the first 10 minutes. Why?

Because of the window. The automatic window.

It’s not even a luxury feature! I’ve been driving for 8 years now and I don’t think any of the cars I’ve ever driven has ever not had an automatic window. Do they even make manual windows anymore? I think a one-touch-down driver’s side window is a pretty standard item these days. Its right up there with things like gas tanks and…wheels.

Despite that, I almost killed myself because I was fascinated by the window. So fascinated that I took my eyes off the road to watch the window roll down by itself.

The car’s got pretty good anti-lock brakes too.