Know your rental car.

It is always a challenge for me during traveling season to remember certain things: hotel room numbers, where I parked my car at the airport, what my rental car even looks like... Generally, I solve these potential problems by snapping a picture on my cell phone of whatever I need to remember. It works great. However, this past weekend in El Paso, I didn't.

For work, I have to fly into a location and move a bunch of stuff around, which usually involves me renting a standard minivan with stow and go seating (love that stow and go!). This time, at the El Paso airport, I rented a truck instead. When I got to the counter, the guy upgraded me to a gigantic truck- the kind that my husband is constantly drooling over. A Dodge Ram. It was huge and silver, there would be no issue with me forgetting what my rental car looked like!

From the airport, I drove 30 miles to Las Cruces, NM and set myself up in the Holiday Inn Express. The next day I made the obligatory trip to the Home Depot to purchase wood and supplies for the robot tournament. After dropping $300 on supplies, I pushed my flat bed cart over to my truck and opened the tailgate. I was surprised to find a few chunks of dirt in the bed- don't they clean theses things before people rent them? So I started loading in the lumber, I jumped up into the bed of the truck for more lift, and I happened to glance into the king cab. There was a shirt slung over the drivers seat: a men's flannel. Suddenly I realized this was NOT my truck! I panicked! I ducked down in the bed, then guiltily raised my head. I was looking for the owner- the guy who would undoubtedly be running wildly at me and yelling. I saw no one particularly interested in what I was doing, so I quickly jumped down and pulled the wood from the bed of the truck back onto my cart. I quickly backed away from the imposter rental truck. Then I started laughing. Hard.

When I backed away enough for a wider view, I could see that there were at least four big silver trucks parked in the lot. I had to hit the lock button on my key remote and listen for the beep before figuring out which truck was mine. Needless to say, I learned my lesson- know your rental car, or at least click the remote to double check!