OK kidding of course but here is my tale of triumph, horror and redemption...
Winter in NY, 2002: I hop on a 5AM Saturday flight JFK to Vermont. Operator picks me up at the airport and we head to uhaul to pick up a 26' truck I reserved 2 weeks earlier. They don't have it ready of course.
We head over to the ops warehouse and dig though his games (I had a list from talking with the guy). We comb through a couple hundred games and settle on ~30 machines. Uhaul calls they have a 26' diesel truck for me and we run over.
Got back to the warehouse and the ops guys packed the games in tight. I was impressed. I head out from Vermont around 3PM expecting to be back in NY around 9PM. I see there is no gas in the truck so I stop and put ~$100 of diesel in.
Now it is -10 or so in Vermont and what I didn't know at the time is diesel freezes. About 2 hours out from the starting point and between exits the truck dies.
The cold is draining my already depleted cell phone, it's -10 and a huge snowstorm comes out of nowhere. I also have no appropriate clothing as I expect to be back in NY in a few hours and not outside in a snowstorm.
I walk about a mile back to a rest stop. No money , no winter coat. They are kind enough to give me coffee and snacks as well as phone use. Uhaul instructs me to buy and put in fuel additive because of the freezing - they do not tell me there are different diesel and gas additives. I got the wrong one, walked back to the truck and made the situation worse as now it wasn't even fixable.
I walk back to the rest stop. Around 8PM uhaul finally found someone willing to tow me in the snowstorm but I had to wait until 11PM. The tow guy picks me up and we head over to the truck. Police are waiting for what I think is to help me. They are not! They want to arrest me because the truck is stuck in the middle of the road and the hazards aren't working - they were broken.
I literally started to cry so they didn't ticket me. The tow truck guy hooks us up and we are off. Am I headed back? No. Toward home? No. This guy is from New Hampshire and tows me there, drops off the truck at a uhaul and then me at a awful fleabag motel. All the good hotels were booked for the Jimmy Fund ski weekend!
I ask uhaul if they will help me load the games onto another truck in the morning and they will not. I begged the tow truck guy to help and he offered to send his son over in the morning if I paid him. What choice did I have?
Uhaul also made me put out the money for the hotel which wiped out my remaining cash! I am so sick by this point from lack of proper clothes my throat is closing up. I also hadn't had food in hours and settled for junk the snack machine. The heater in the hotel was a tiny little baseboard heater which I pretty much has sex with that night in order to not freeze to death.
The next day sure enough I had to wait until around 1PM for uhaul to have a new truck for me. This time a gas truck, not a diesel. The tow truck guys son picked me up and we unloaded and reloaded all 30+ games. Thank god for that kid!
I was on the road by 3PM but the adventure continues... The new truck had no gas in it. I was so mad after putting $100 into the other one. Again I had no choice so I filled it up on credit. Here comes the fun part, pulling out of the gas station I managed to mount the truck onto one of those curved metal poles meant to protect the gas pumps. It ripped a 3' gash between the wheel wells. This time I was hysterically laughing as what else could go wrong. Fortunately for me it was only on the flashing and not into the cab. I kicked off the broken piece and hit the road.
Got to NY around 9PM and it was snowing again. My friends met me and we unloaded everything. I took the truck to uhaul to return it making sure to park the damage out facing the street. Since it was snowing they didn't bother to inspect it. They never said a word and probably hoped I didn't sue them.
In the end they paid me back for everything except $1 "have to charge you something or we are saying we did something wrong".
I know what you are thinking:
1. This story is fake - I give you my word it is 100% true
2. Lessons learned - Never go on a trip like that alone. Always bring extra cash. Uhaul is a terrible organization.
3. What games did you get? What I remember: gravitar, battlezone cabaret, sinistar, joust, stargate, robotron, ms. pac, galaga, chexx, pop-a-shot, virtua cop, keyboardmania, kixx, qbert, kickman, missile command, many more.