enterprising

One of the perks of my job is driving the rental cars. I am hopeless in terms of name brands—was that Chrysler or Pontiac?—but I have been in Focuses and Acuras and PT Cruisers and G6es and even a Commander, which, being the size of a small house, certainly lives up to its name on the road.

I also get to coast on gas fumes, call AAA, inspect scratches, buy tire gauges, fiddle with broken cigarette lighters (damn GPS machines), locate mystery keys, lecture drivers about the significance of the check engine light—in sum, to deal with the statistics of over two dozen unpredictable and overworked machines. My contacts at the local rental company no longer ask to take down my number and I am becoming quite accustomed to the bowl of tootsie rolls they leave on at the counter.

This past weekend the passenger side window of one vehicle was smashed and forcibly entered—I would have happily spared the thieves the trouble and told them the GPS machine didn’t work. Instead, I found myself filching from the candy bowl, reminding one of the attendants not to kill the messenger. "Don't look at me," I said, entering the cool of the rental car office, which is thoughtlessly tucked up against interstate exit 45.

"Oh, I get it” he replied. "You're just the go-to. You're the Kobe Bryant—the one they pass to."