Uhaul
Recently I was driving a Uhaul to move clutter from my old apartment into my new apartment. The clutter was neatly packaged in cardboard boxes which justified keeping it. Obviously I wouldn’t keep junk unless I could store it efficiently. The moving team consisted of me, Maddie, and my mom. Maddie had to return to the new apartment to grab the Ikea disassembly tools while my mom and I trekked to the old apartment to start on the moving effort.
It was my first time driving a Uhaul, so I was feeling powerful. The average car size in Seattle is only a little bit bigger than a golf cart, so the Uhaul dominated the road. In fact, the roads weren’t built for such behemoths; I basically took up two lanes of traffic. The other cars honked, but I ignored their protests because I don’t respect cars with single digit horsepower*. Get back to the fairways and greens from which you came!
*Editor Note: The phenomenon described above has been extensively studied and labeled the truck effect.
The feelings of superiority subsided quickly when the fuel gauge hit empty. Blast, they’d given us an empty tank. We’d been swindled by capitalists. It’d been less than a mile.
After struggling to pull up to the pump - my large machinery driving skills probably ranked about a two, the same number of honks I’d gotten - I started filling up the tank. Something didn’t sound right, so I stopped. The sound was liquid sloshing on the ground, so I looked under the Uhaul and saw the overpriced gas leaking out the tank.
It was one of those surreal experiences where the event happens once in a lifetime, so you don’t believe it. I pulled the handle and continued filling up. Watching all the while, I confirmed that none of the gas made it into the Uhaul. A large puddle of gasoline pooled under the Uhaul, around my feet, and I thought to myself, “This isn’t good. I’m going to explode.”
The perfect solution to any unknown situation, I called my mom out of the passenger seat. The janky Uhaul didn’t open from the passenger side, so my mom scooted out the drive side. We investigated the problem. Our initial impression was that maybe I was doing it wrong - a purley legitimate hunch. Were we sure that I found the fuel pipe or was I just filling a random hole?
We circled Uhaul and confirmed, “Yep, right hole.” Then, I crouched under the Uhaul and - eureka! - discovered the cause of the problem. Some hooligan hand sawed off part of the gas pike. The piece was literally missing but engraved with the remnants of saw markings. My mom and I gauked all dumbstruck to have learned that the potentially flammable part of the vehicle had been tampered with.
Fully expecting to explode, we returned to the Uhaul and mapped out the route back to the office. I prepared to go full Karen and demand my money back. I turned the key on, the Uhaul sparked on, the spark ignited the pool of gasoline below the fuel tank, the Uhahl burst into flames, we died a fiery death, and then Maddie left a one star review on yelp.
No, that’s how it played out in my head. What actually happened, I turned the key on, we drove the one mile back to the office without using the brakes to conserve the fuel we didn’t have. Thankfully we didn’t explode.
At the front desk, we explained our situation and the apathetic clerk said something along the lines of, “Yeah, that checks out. We’ve had similar problems in the past. It’s a sketchy part of town. The perpetrators usually get the trucks during the night.”
Both my mom and I were shocked, becauese renting out dangerous machinery seems like a potential lawsuit. The last time I checked, Uhaul was in the business of being a business. They should really invest in basic repairs plus a night security guard, or a really good lawyer.
Resolution of the story, they gave us a replacement Uhaul. It was the finest Uhaul in the fleet and the doors opened from both sides - so very nice. We spent the whole day moving clutter from the old apartment into the apartment then ate gyros.
