“It’s not rocket science” is perhaps way overused but the fact is, some things in life should not be that hard. Renting a car should be one of those things.

And yet…

It was like this…

I flew to Oakland, collected my bag, and boarded the bus to the Oakland International Airport Rental Car Center. This is the official name of the facility. The word “International” implies a big time operation and ordinarily it looks that way. Normally, it’s a great big building surrounded by acres of shiny cars. I’d been to the big time operation many times before and because I had reserved a car from Hertz, a company I’d used for many years with great success, I was expecting a smooth transaction. But as the bus approached the so-called “International” Rental Car Center, I couldn’t help but notice that something was lacking.

The great big building was there, but the acres of shiny cars were not. It appeared “Post Apocalyptic Rental Car Center” would be a more appropriate name. Instantly I knew something was wrong. I had that pit in the stomach feeling you have when you think you just might be going the wrong way. You don’t officially know you’re lost but for the past ten miles, the voice in your head has been telling you just that, until finally you arrive at the Pacific Ocean, which is nowhere near your destination and then the voice starts in with the “I told you so stuff” and deep down, you know the voice is right. Again.

Anyway, I made my way, along with the pit in my stomach, and the voice in my head, to the vaunted Hertz Gold service area. With Gold service, you find your name on the board, go to the stall listed next to your name, hop in the car and drive away. Tragically, there would be no Gold service on this day. Instead, there was Tin service.

With Tin service, there are almost no names on the board and of the few names that are on there, none belong to you. So instead of hopping into a car, you hop into line.

In this case fifteen highly agitated travelers had hopped into line ahead of me (Here it is ever so tempting to say the travelers were already hopping mad).

With the ever-growing line at a standstill, the Hertz team chose that moment to send out the harried supervisor to apologize. She didn’t know why Hertz had let them overbook but they did and now they were out of cars. Think about that for a moment.

Out of cars. If McDonalds were to run out of hamburgers (which in itself is unimaginable), they could still sell one of those chicken things they have. But there are no chicken things at Hertz. They only have one thing, cars. And now they were out of them.

A great many people in the line expressed their displeasure loudly (a nice way of saying they screamed) before heading for competing rental companies. Others stayed and watched the Hertz team in action. Any car that was returned was immediately offered up to whoever had made it to the counter. Some people were so desperate to get out of there they took anything with wheels. Others had to be pickier. One man, for instance, insisted he needed a navigation system and stuck it out until he got one.

When it was finally my turn at the counter, a nice young woman named Leticia offered me some kind of giant, behemoth like sedan that had just been returned. But behemoths and I do not get along so I waited for something smaller. Leticia disappeared into the back where I’m sure she was trying to will an economy car into existence. When she returned it was apparent that her efforts to create a car from thin air had been unsuccessful. What’s more, her supervisor, the increasingly harried one, now insisted she stay at the counter even though because of the dearth of vehicles, she had absolutely nothing to do. Leticia was not pleased about this one bit.

In an effort to cheer her up, I thought now was as good a time as any to whip out my phone and dial up the old Seinfeld scene about car rentals where he says, “You know how to take the reservation, you just don’t know how to hold the reservation.

And that’s really the most important part.” I played the scene for Leticia but it was loud enough for the whole lobby to hear. Pretty soon the whole lobby was laughing. As usual, Seinfeld hit the nail on the head. They say laughter goes a long way but in reality, you can go much further in a car. Anyone who has tried crossing the bay bridge with only a joke knows just what I mean. Eventually Leticia did produce a car for me and sent me out behind the building to pick it up.

The implication being that the car was actually behind the building. But instead of cars there were hordes of people who’d been promised cars, waiting for those cars, which probably were behind some building, just not this one. Ten minutes later, a Hyundai Elantra (nowhere near behemoth like) finally appeared and I was finally on my way.

As I drove away from the International Rental Car Center, I thought about how simple this should have been. That’s when about rocket science. I decided the overused expression was true; this was not rocket science. On the other hand, I bet NASA never runs out of rockets.