“We were confused and we’re like, ‘What’s happening?’ And then the vehicle just shut off.”
Okay, so this was probably a year ago. My family and I like to go to Florida every year. Sometimes we go in different locations, but this year we were going to Marco Island. And this year we finally like flew. Because before then we would usually like drive a really, really long time to get there. And we flew, we got out at the Florida airport, I can’t remember where it was, but wasn’t exactly at Marco Island. It was like a hour, hour and a half drive there. And we had a rental car. So, you know, that was convenient. Got in the rental car, start driving. And like, relevant for the story, those hybrid cars that like are both electric and gas powered, that like kind of feed off each other — which like, we did that once before, when we rented a car another time. And you know, we liked it, so we did it again this year. And I have three sisters, you know, my dad and my mom, we were all packed in the car. And it was a really long drive. And we were like in Naples, Florida area.
And we just got off the highway, we were coming to a light, and all of a sudden it just said, “Stop car, vehicle’s turning off.” And we were confused and we’re like, “What’s happening?” And then the vehicle just shut off. Luckily we were at the light, but like we couldn’t move. We couldn’t — like we turned it off, turned it on. Wouldn’t start up. And like, eventually we had these people, like construction workers nearby, help us push it off the road. Like we put in neutral.
And that was just the start of it all. Because, like, we started calling the tech support like, you know, the insurance company for the rental car. We were like, “Hey, our car broke down.” Like, “Just randomly happened.” And they were like, giving pretty bad advice. They’re like, “Have you tried turning on and off again?” It’s like, “Yes.” They’re like, “Okay, well, you’re gonna have to charge it.” It’s like, “Well, no, you don’t actually,” but he just like — they’re like, “Oh, this is probably the problem.” But it wasn’t. It was like something internal, probably with the engine, I would guess. But I honestly couldn’t tell you.
So they were like, “Okay.” Like, “Call this tow company,” or “Call this one company that like can jump start the battery.” And this company came. That took like 15, 30 minutes. And so, they came, they’re like, “Yeah, I would suggest just trying to charge it.” And like, but like the nearest charging station was like a Walmart because luckily they had like electrical charging stations there in Naples. And it was like a Walmart, maybe like half a mile, a quarter mile away, which is not crazy but like the car was not starting. But luckily at that point it had like a little bit of power so we turned it on, drove to Walmart, got there, and then we’re like, “Oh, we can’t charge it.” Like it just wouldn’t work with the port system we had. Like we had a bunch of people around us with their electrical cars, which like we’ve never owned one, we only do gas cars. And they’re like, trying to give us advice. They’re like, “Oh, you need this port.” “You need blah, blah blah.” And we were just like — it was hot too. And we couldn’t get any cell service, because like our network just wasn’t working there.
And we then like called them again and they were like, “Do this,” like, “You’re gonna just have to, like, switch it,” like you know, “You can go to this rental place nearby and just grab a car, but it closes at 5:00.” And it was like 4:49, like 4:50, like really, really late and we were trying to make it there and it just wouldn’t start up. And like we eventually figured that out and we couldn’t get there. So like we’d go on the road, we tried to drive to that place. Like that was like maybe a quarter mile away again. And it just shut down, and it shut down in the middle of the road. And then we’d call someone and they would be like, “Oh, well, I don’t know what’s happening to you guys. So, tough luck.” And so eventually we get to like a Shell gas station, and we’re just sitting there. We could not find — we couldn’t, like none of us could get like a bar to like call, because we were like, “Okay” — we finally decide, okay, we’re just gonna have to, like, call the company that’s responsible for this and like have them tow it back. You know just leave the keys in there, have them tow it back, and we’re just gonna drive back to the airport, like an hour away, grab a new rental car, and then drive like two hours back to Marco Island.
And so, but we can’t call like an Uber to get us there because like we don’t have any cell service. And at the gas station by sister — my little sister, she was like 16 at the time, started talking to this homeless man that was like, “Oh yeah, if you go behind this hotel, you can get cell signal.” And we were just like so worried for her. But like me and my other sisters tried it, and it worked. And then we started like, calling bring like, “Hey, can we get a car for six people?” But like they kept misinterpreting it, as like, oh, like a car for — like they just didn’t understand. They’re like, “Oh, so a car with three seats, and two seats in the front.” And we’re like, “No, we need it for six people to be able to sit in there.” So they kept sending like the wrong sized cars. So they’d send like a sedan, which I think is like the like two-door one, where it’s just like three seats in the back, two in the front. And it’s like,, we can’t fit six people in there, because that’s my family size. Like we can’t fit six grown adults in there. And so we’d be like, “Okay, call a new one.” Like we called four different Ubers and like we eventually just decided, “Okay, we’ll just take two separate cars.”
And our like — My dad was so frustrated at this point. Because he was like, just he likes to be organized, and it was stressing him out. And like my other sisters, we were all hungry at this point because we haven’t, hadn’t ate before we went on the plane which was like six hours ago, at least. Like we were stuck out there at the Shell gas station for good like three hours. And so, none of us ate. We all get hangry. And so I just had to ride with him alone so we, they wouldn’t fight, like my dad and my siblings.
And so we got back finally to the airport. Hour drive. It was dark and it was like rush hour because everyone was trying to like, get back home from work or like get somewhere around that time. Like you know, the PM rush hour. And took forever. We couldn’t locate like where the rental car service was and like that was a whole problem. We finally got the rental car, and we started driving, and then we figure out on the way there that we forgot like our keys or something like that, like keypass for the like Airbnb we rented, so that was a whole issue, but luckily it was resolved.
And we have had so many rental car issues. Like that’s just one of the stories, and we were stuck on the streets in Naples, Florida for I swear six or seven hours. And that was just a chaotic thing my family went through, but luckily it all worked out and now it’s just a funny story.