"The Rental Car"

In every traveler’s life, there comes a moment when you realize you’re in over your head.
Mine came when I rented a car to go from Toulon to Avignon on an invitation from friends to stay at a spectacularly old, possibly haunted chateau. Easy choice there. Book it.
There is something childishly exciting about traveling by car. You can stop wherever you want, whenever you want, and gawk as long as you want at lavender fields riddled with yellow mustard flowers, falling down churches guarding timeless villages and little off-the-beaten-path roads leading to nowhere and everywhere.
Life signed away, I took my rental receipt and went looking for my numbered spot in the parking lot. There it was. The vehicle of my escape. My chariot. My time machine. I looked at my car, looked at my receipt, back at the car. There before me was a totally unremarkable 1978 Fiat—a Fanta-orange, slip of a roller skate. I imagined the gear shift grinding, its rotting exhaust complaining with a “ka-boom” of smoke as I rolled out of the lot. I closed my eyes, willing myself a different car, but there the car remained, grinning its rusty grill-teeth, ready to get on with the adventure.
I got in and shut the door with a groaning clank. Wincing, I prayed I wouldn’t drop the transmission to the ground getting it into reverse. Success! I put-putted out of the garage, arranged my map on the passenger seat and headed for the onramp to Avignon.
All went surprisingly well until I hit my first hill winding up and around an unseen curve in the Provençal countryside.
I instantly downshifted, realizing the autoroute was made for Mercedes Benz and Audis, whose occupants were speeding past me, honking their horns and making crude gestures at me and my fiendish car. As I approached the crest, I started going backwards. Seeing my dreams slip away with every belch of exhaust, I downshifted again and sent a prayer to the Avignon popes. The car responded, gave a shiver, a lurch, and made the crest without falling apart or running downwards to oblivion. I marveled, dreams intact.
Then..I arrived at my first toll. I had brought no cash. Good feelings gone.
As I watched the line behind me back up to Toulon, furious fingers waving, toll booth operators cursing all touristes, I saw the sun setting against olive groves, its kaleidoscopic splendor reflecting the translucent, gasoline-soaked waves of heat on the route. In over my head? Sure. But there is no defeat in a journey whose destination is wonder.