the word of the day is debacle.

do not use cheap car rental companies. apparently, their profit margins are so small that they resort to being bastards to get the customer to pay for as much as possible. one has charged me for a service that i explicitly refused (and checked three refusal boxes on the rental form about). the other is trying to claim that i damaged their car when i absolutley did not. this is why i do not own a handgun or other tempting pain-causational-device-thingy.