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What better way to start the first few hours of a vacation in Maui than by stealing a car? Let me explain...

Whenever my family goes to Maui we use "Word Of Mouth Car Rentals" because they are insanely cheap (~$13/day). The owner and company have plenty of quirks that remind me of the "Soup Nazi" sketch on Seinfeld. Here is the procedure to rent a car from them:

1. Call them to say you want to rent a car. They will then say to stop talking and email them with all the pertinent information
2. Send them an email with flight and driver's license info.
   
3. Wait for their reply email.
4. Call them on the day of your flight to Maui before you leave so they can tell you where they will hide the rental car. They will tell you the color, car type, license plate, and location of the car.
5. When you arrive at Maui you go find the car and it will be unlocked with the keys under the passenger seat.

I had been through that process three times and it's strange but it works. However this time was another story. We arrived in Maui at 9:00 PM (Midnight P.S.T.). I went immediately to the part of the lot where the car was supposed to be. It wasn't there. There were no cars matching the description. Samantha and I then began walking down every row of the parking lot. I even yanked on the door handles of most of the cars that I thought might be rental cars (yes, the security guards were looking at me with suspicion).

Finally, after an hour of wandering around I had to decide what to do. After combing the lot I found one other vehicle that was from Word Of Mouth. I knew it was from there because I found the keys and contract in an envelope under the seat. The contract was for a John Woodin and his friend Andrew Forbes. The car was a Toyota Corolla but mine was supposed to be gold and this one was blue and also the license plate didn't match. So, I looked over Mr. Woodin's contract to try to look for clues. His flight was due to arrive the same night. So, I theorized he had seen my envelope and not noticed the difference in our names or assumed that they misspelled his name. I then had to make a difficult decision (keep in mind that Word Of Mouth isn't open at night so I couldn't call anybody): should I take this guy's car under the assumption that he took mine or should I try to find a taxi? As you can tell from the title of this post I decided to take his car. By that time is was past 1 AM California time and I was tired and wanted to get to the condo. I felt really guilty that I might be inconveniencing someone else (if he didn't take mine) and that I could be arrested for car theft. I even called my parents asking if they would bail me out if I was arrested. My Mom laughed and said she didn't want to be an "enabler".

This morning we drove to Word Of Mouth and the owner was pissed off, not at me though. He agreed with me that the other people messed up and he gave us another car. The first car vibrated badly and the seat belt didn't work so it was nice to get an upgrade. So, that's the story of my first car theft!