#21 Fast Cars Save Friendships

The three of us walked through the small airport in Biloxi, Mississippi, up to the Enterprise car rental counter. We had booked a one-way trip to Austin an hour ago.

"We have two cars - a two-door V8 Hemi Dodge Challenger and a Dodge Charger," the woman at the counter told us with a southern twang.

Five days before, my friend Michael and I had flown to New Orleans. It was the first time I had ever flown SouthWest, and the first time we were traveling together. Around the second day, I figured out that both of us are low maintenance to a fault. We didn't demand much if anything from each other and went along with whatever happened.

When the expectations from each other are low, you get laid-back vacations that could be boring yet quaint. There was no spontaneity because we didn't have any plans to be derailed in the first place. Nothing unexpected happened during the vacation because we didn't have any expectations. Except on the last day, we did assume that our flights would take off at the right time.

8PM the night before, we realized our flight was canceled, so I booked a car rental with Hertz for the following day. When we got to the rental location, another customer delivered the news before we got to the counter. "They are not doing one way rentals and there are no rental cars anywhere in New Orleans," he said as he walked past us and out into the parking lot. This was surprisingly not shocking, considering 70% of SouthWest flights were canceled that day. Michael went up to the man and asked him if he knew any places that had cars. "Biloxi, Mississipi," he said and then added, "I'm taking an airport shuttle from my hotel there". We didn’t have that option.

In the frantic 20 minutes that followed, I called up our friend Tim who was visiting his family in Sidel, halfway between New Orleans and Biloxi. We debated taking a bus to Austin , which would have been a miserable anticlimactic end to the trip but after some back and forth decided against it. We landed on taking an Uber to Sidel, and then Tim said he would drop us at Biloxi. While we waited for the Uber, we both had a silent realization that this was the first time the trip had come to life.

"We'll take the Dodge Challenger," I told the Enterprise employee.

As we walked to the car, Michael was the first to notice it, and he laughed out loud. If the raised air intake, the all-black finish, and the muscle car look were not enough, the roar of the engine on ignition clearly told us what to expect.

As I took the highway, I put my foot on the throttle, and the Challenger came to life. We spent the next 9 hours zooming through traffic at an alarming speed that was easy for this machine. When we stopped in Houston for dinner, I joked with Michael that we would likely not be friends anymore if we had taken the bus. More truth in it than our other jokes.

The New Orleans trip felt like one of those movies like Unforgiven or Killing Them Softly, where nothing happens for most of the movie, and then things explode to life, fast car chases happen, a lot of frantic action, the plot is neatly wrapped up, and the trip ends.