I've gotten too complacent.
I expect that when I rent a car, I will be able to plug in my phone charger. Simple, right? In all of the years that I have been traveling with a cell phone, I have always had multiple ports in rental cars and in hotel rooms. I can either plug in using the USB cable or the regular plug.
Oh, I own multiple, and I do mean MULTIPLE adapters. I have USB A, B, C, micro, HDMI, multi-plugs, and the ones that go into the old lighter jacks. But I usually only need the one I bring with me in my backpack pretty much everywhere I go.
Until the Toyota Camry rental in North Carolina.
I need either a lighter jack adapter (left all of them at home and in my car at the bus terminal back in Boston) or a USB C to C. I have neither. The kicker is that the port on the airplane was loose, and I didn't realize that the phone battery was draining rather than charging, so I have to figure out the car charger situation.
My phone is so low on charge that I decide I'd probably better not get on the highway from the airport to my destination. Trying a new and different backroads route from the airport (I like to experiment with my directional deficiencies) means that I must have the phone reminding me of where I should and shouldn't turn. About two miles away from the airport, I spot a Walgreens. Perfect. I pull into the parking lot and walk out into the blue skies and sunny warmth of a Southern summer.
The whole transaction from car to display to cash register to car takes maybe eleven minutes.
In that short time, though, the wind has picked up, the temperature has dropped, and the sky has turned an ominous green-black. Thunder rolls nearby, and I rapidly surmise that I'm not in Kansas anymore, Toto. I start the car, plug in the adapter, set Waze, and drive to the parking lot exit. As I attempt to make a right turn onto the road, the heavens drop. Rain is pouring down so fiercely that the wipers cannot even keep pace. Tree limbs are flying by faster than Almira Gulch rides her bicycle through the tornado.
Any attempt on my part to make note of landmarks, so I can return to the airport the way I'm going when the time comes, is washed away in rivulets of water. It is like the car has been covered with a continuous wave. There are city workers just parked in the lanes of the road, picking up branches and, in some cases, entire trees. The little car does its impression of the Nautilus and I am Captain Nemo as we plod through mini-ponds in the small valleys along the route.
Thirty minutes later I arrive at my destination. Thunder still rumbles in the distance, and the rain has almost stopped. The good news is that the phone is charging, and it didn't flake out on me. I will just have to remember to take the charger with me before I turn the car back in at the airport.
After all, what's one more adapter for the collection? Maybe it'll be worth something in the future.
