Well, since we have a couple of on-topic, but not M3, and not exactly related stories already, I'll add mine:
On a business trip to Detroit-area and using a Hertz rental car during a particularly snowy, frakking cold night. Take four co-workers (makes five of us total in the Ford Taurus - aka "Rental Car of the Stars") to a not-company sponsored dinner at a co-workers' BFE house.
The snow stops, temperature drops while we are there. I hardly ever drink, and had nothing that night either. But pretty much two of my passengers home are $hit-faced, and the other two are buzzing.
Driving back at 2:00 am on the just-plowed roads, the center rear passenger shouts something like "I gotta hurl!"
All sensible snow-ice-driving logic goes away for a moment when I hear that, and I sorta stomp on the brake pedal. Car slaloms a bit to a stop on the not-easy to see shoulder; but it was too late.
In my keep-the-car-facing-the-proper-direction effort, I missed that the left rear passenger rolled the window down and the center-passenger just got his head out the window.
We let him make his awful noises and then I begin driving again and drop all of them off at the hotel. I park the car in the lot.
The next morning I go outside and get ready to head for the last day of the office before flying home.
And...I happen to look at the left rear quarter panel of the Taurus.
It is totally, horrendously gruesome. Frozen ick, in large quantity, pretty much covering the entire left rear of the car. And it was ... yeah, bad.
Well, first thing is, can't drive that to work with that, as the sun is coming up.
Q: I start asking people for a car wash.
A: Uh, no, idiot-from-Texas, car washes are closed in January in Detroit when it is 12 degrees F.
Q: What about an ice scraper from the trunk?
A: Sort of a concrete-style concoction on quarter panel is stubborn and won't scrape off.
I pretty much decided that the only thing, other than waiting for June to return the car, would involve applying warmth. A co-worker offered ideas like bringing a hair dryer outside on a few cords, but neither of us wanted to survive the odor that would create.
We parked at a corner of the lot, and went inside and got a gallon milk jug of hot water.
It was enough to loosen the concrete barf that the ice scraper could at least do a bit of good. Somewhat.
Said ice scraper was chunked into the the snow.
Hertz returns didn't ask about it, and I didn't offer.
Moral #1: sometimes a person getting sick INSIDE your car is less work for you than someone getting sick OUTSIDE ON your car.
Moral #2: Or leave those people behind!
- V
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