I am a fairly frequent user of Avis rental cars. More often than not, my rental car is equipped with Sirius radio, which makes long trips through such exotic locales as Ozona, Texas infinitely more bearable. Unfortunately, as of this posting, Sirius is bickering with Avis over how much of a kickback they should get for their service, and as a way of "sticking it to the man" has disabled the satellite radio on all Avis' cars. You can't even pay extra to get it. You may have figured out by now how much I enjoy taking a corporate shafting on behalf of another giant company, so I really lit into Sirius. The following letter is not so much strictly factual as much as it is a metaphor for how royally pissed I was.
The Letter
Dear Sirius,
Do you know what the current weather conditions in St. Louis are right now? How about Albuquerque? Do you know how traffic is outside of Atlanta? Or could you tell me what time Rosie O'Donnell's radio show comes on?
In case you don't know any of these things, just ask me, because I know. In fact, I might never be able to purge these little pieces of information from my brain. Why, you ask? To adequately answer that question, I need to explain a little bit about my job. My work requires me to make frequent car trips across Texas, trips which often take 8 hours or more. My employers recommend I rent a car for these drives, so I use the Avis across the street from my house. Avis has your radio service equipped on many of its vehicles, but they often charge an upgrade fee for those cars. Imagine my delight, then, when on my last trip I pressed the satellite radio button on the console of my bargain bin car and saw Sirius activate! "No need to drive home and grab the CDs," I said mirthfully as I turned onto the highway and sped off into the distance.
I was just out of turn-around range when I realized how wrong I was.
I started absent-mindedly clicking the seek button on the radio, thinking to myself "man, Sirius has a lot of preview and weather stations these days." Then I started clicking the Category button. Then I started turning the selector knob.
And then I realized.
I was only getting three channels: previews, weather...and a blank station.
You had shut me out. For all 16 hours of my round-trip drive. With no CDs.
You ever listen to FM radio in western Texas? You haven't, because it doesn't exist. I never thought I would miss Lady Gaga and Lil' Wayne, except maybe in a "hey, you know it sorta did feel nice to have that warm ear blood running down my neck" kind of way. But the silence is deafening. It forces me to confront the voices on the inside. The ones that keep asking "why can't you make your mother love you?" and "remember when you were a kid, and everyone always called you piss-mouth because of that time Timmy Deerborne peed in your lemon Kool-Aid and you didn't know until it was too late?"
You don't even want to know what they did to my "Slimer" Hi-C.
So I left you on. Let you barrage me with your robotic voice reminding me not to miss Glenn Beck today, because he was going to tell us why we need to be afraid of liberals for a completely new reason! Except I couldn't tune in. For all I knew, the liberals could have stormed the Gulf of Mexico and taken Texas, and I was driving right into their Concentration Camp for People Who Love Guns and Freedom, and Glenn was the only one who could warn me. And I would have died from government spending and gay marriage.
"Over there, a Christian! Get him!"
It was like A Clockwork Orange, without all the sex and cool clothes. When I got home, I spent 14 hours sitting in the floor of my shower, shivering while the cold water pelted my face. I tried everything; booze, pills, chewing gum. Nothing could erase the monotonous drone from my mind.
I hear it at night when I close my eyes.
When I returned my car to Avis, I learned that the cause of my suffering was a dick-measuring contest you've started with Avis over how much they should charge for your services. And until someone can find a ruler with nanometers marked on it, you've taken your ball and gone home. Is this really how the revolution starts? With you locking out thousands of potential customers in an attempt to match the success of the TV writers' strike? Hell, I might as well see if I can find an LP player that plugs into a cigarette lighter for my next trip.
No, a prism still won't help you see it.
The Response
Despite a promise to respond within 24 hours, I've got nothing. They're probably refusing to communicate through anything but a telegraph as a form of protest against Avis.
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