troywestern.com

Wed.June 2

With the day before tour departure meticulously planned down to the hour, Myke and I arrived back in St. Catharines after I had spent the night at Myke’s place after the DMB concert in Toronto. The Hertz van rental had been finalized through CAA about a month or two before. We arrived at Hertz at 12:50pm, 10 minutes before our scheduled pick-up time and right on time for the misadventure to begin! Hertz had their hours of business sign in the window with a handwritten note on the top part stating “CLOSED FOR GOOD”.

Beside that was a Hertz poster stating that location had been shut down, directing customers to go to their store located in Hamilton.

No notice had been given to me about this closure. After several minutes of scratching our heads, a woman came to the door and suffered a similar reaction as ours. I called CAA and got the distinct impression I was the first to tell them that this Hertz location had been shut down. I was passed around to four different people, each with a notable, disconcerting tone of surprise and slight panic as they scrambled in the background to figure out what was going on and what to do; it sounded like an air traffic control room in the midst of an emergency landing. Eventually, I told them I’d come to the CAA building to figure things out in person, to which the woman there gratefully and somewhat curtly stated “Good.”. Let the games begin.

On our way to CAA, I called Dave to let him know the deal since he had made arrangements to come to Hertz on his lunch break to be signed on as an extra driver, which was also the same reason Myke made the trek down from Toronto. At CAA, we spoke with the best customer service rep in the history of all customer service reps, Cassandra, who was busy blasting Hertz for their incompetence. We eventually settled on the plan that Hertz would call me shortly thereafter. The time was roughly 1:40pm. Myke and I returned to my house to get things organized for packing. Since our timeline was ruined for the day, we got things organized as best we could.

I called Cassandra every hour for an update and each time she was surprised to hear Hertz hadn’t called me yet since they kept telling her they would call me “shortly”. Perhaps they need a proper education on how to tell time amongst other things.

Finally, at around 4:50pm (10 minutes before closing), the Regional Manager of Hertz Ontario, Chand, called me. He kept telling me they “were doing their levelled best” to remedy the situation. He tried to make Hertz sound like superheroes while telling me they managed to get a van for me, but I’d have to go to Hamilton to pick it up. In no uncertain terms, I demanded he have the van delivered directly to me at my house and that I was amazed he had the audacity to even ask such a thing of me after their major screw up. He said they informed all of their customers that they were closing that location and that somehow I missed the message – the same lie they gave CAA about my situation. I called him on his B.S. and he back-pedalled somewhat, saying somehow I must have been missed amongst the calls. We basically had the same conversation three times:

CHAND: Sir, we’re doing our levelled best to get you your rental vehicle, but you have to come to Hamilton to pick it up.

TROY: NO. YOU will have my rental van delivered directly to me at my house.

CHAND: Sir, we’re doing our levelled best, but we just don’t have the manpower to do that.

TROY: That’s not my problem. You will find someone to deliver that van directly to me, even if you have to do it yourself.

And repeat conversation X 3. Eventually, I decided to use the “catch more flies with honey” approach, so I tried reasoning with him by getting him to actually understand the situation, changing my tone and asking him to set aside his role as Regional Manager and see things from a customer’s perspective. After much further discussion and telling him he should be upgrading my service while he steadfastly said no, he eventually said he’d call me back. Meanwhile, Cassandra was looking for an update on the situation. I called her right after and gave her the details. Shortly thereafter, Chand called back to tell me he had made arrangements to have a van driven to me from Toronto. What happened to the Hamilton van, I don’t know, but at that point, I didn’t care; I figured it must somehow have been a better van.

Fortunately for me (and perhaps unfortunately for Myke), Myke had come down to St. Catharines with me to be signed on as an extra driver. He very graciously agreed to stay at my house while I left to go to my daughter’s dance recital rehearsal, which was imperative for me to go since I was missing the actual recital while on the road. I had a call before we left from some other Hertz guy at the Pearson Airport Hertz confirming the van was on its way. He made sure to comment on how “unorthodox this was for a vehicle to be delivered directly to someone’s house”. I should’ve told him to perform a nefarious act on himself, but I didn’t bother. The van didn’t end up arriving until after we had returned home, which I guess was good. At around 8:30pm, the two delivery guys came in to my house. One sat smugly while the other tried to figure out how to fill out the paperwork he brought with him. The delivery guy said to make sure I keep the contract handy in case we get pulled over by the police, to which I responded “like THAT’S gonna happen”. I knew even then I should’ve kept my mouth shut.

The van had a DVD player (which we couldn’t use anyway because of all the gear we inevitably packed in), and I suspect it might have been an attempt at an upgrade, along with Sirius, which I’m pretty sure was part of the original deal. No GPS type of option included, which I thought should have been, especially since Chand said he thought there was something like that included and that he’d ‘look into it’. Dave arrived at the same time as the van to be signed on as an extra driver. Turns out after all the planning and having Myke and Dave make extra arrangements for this purpose, these guys didn’t have the paperwork or the knowledge on how to sign on Myke or Dave. Overall, I couldn’t believe the sheer incompetence and ineptitude displayed by Hertz and its staff. I am sending them a letter of complaint blasting them for the nauseating lack of professionalism and utter absence of customer service.

We packed the van that night shortly after the one delivery guy searched for his lost phone. By the time we decided to call it a night, it was probably around 1am. Good times on day minus one of the tour.

Thu.June 3

My alarm went off at around 5am, leaving enough time to toss some food down the gullet and I think maybe a shower before Myke and I left to pick up Dave at 6am. He was waiting at my parents’ place after dropping off his car there. Saying goodbye to Shari and the kids was fortunately brief and somewhat rushed; fortunate because it was extremely difficult to do, but I choked that one down and focused on the adventure ahead. As soon as we hit the highway, I gave the ol’ “we’re on our way” type of cheer. Moments later, we heard a loud, heart-sinking “clunkity clunk clunk” on the roof of the van. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw one of our mic stands spinning around on the highway behind us. Damn. That sucked. I immediately pulled the van over to the side of the road and the three of us hopped out to examine the mystery of how the AWOL mic stand escaped from the cargo carrier. Turns out we hadn’t locked the carrier properly and the thing decided to make a run for it. While Myke and Dave reworked the improperly packed cargo carrier, I ran back down the shoulder of the highway to see if there was anything worth reclaiming of our surely mangled mic stand. I spotted the main part of the stand resting tauntingly half on the shoulder and half on the highway – pretty much right on the line. I waited until the hundreds of transport trucks went past and liberated the stand from further harm. Amazingly, the stand – which I then realized was Dave’s – was not completely destroyed by the transport trucks that were right behind us. In fact, it suffered some major road rash, but was otherwise none the worse for wear.

Interestingly, this particular mic stand has some sentimental value for Dave since I think his aunt gave it to him, he’s had it the longest, and it’s suffered the most damage of all his stands, but still works ok. Good morning Day 1 of the tour.

We arrived in Toronto at around 8:30am, give or take, and went straight to Myke’s place so he could pack up his gear. Then we made our way to Matt’s, Tom’s, and Laura’s place. This was the first time Dave, Myke, and I had met Tom and the first time Dave met all three. At some point on our way there that morning, I had asked Myke to text Matt to let them know there was just simply no room in the van for a drum kit. No one liked that, especially the drummer, Tom, I imagine. Matt went to work on his Tetris action with the van and eventually we figured out a way to get almost everything in there – the drum kit, the PA + 2 speakers, a bass, two acoustic guitars, one electric guitar, the electric and bass amps, luggage, camping gear, and all 6 of us. Amazing.

We pulled away at 11:10am and headed for Montreal. Finally we were on our way. Oh my Rod.

Our first fill up was at a Pioneer gas station. Someone spilled Myke’s container of granola all along the passenger side door, on the ground, and all in the track for the door. Damn granola-eatin’ hippies can’t keep their stuff together.

We found ourselves in Montreal during rush hour amongst their mangled up highway system. For a brief time, we followed a car from Nova Scotia in Montreal, which I found ironic since that was kind of our ultimate destination. Eventually we made it to Matt’s sister, Ainslie’s place, but not before I shoved the van into a far-too-small parking lot that required a hundred-point turn and guidance from Myke to get out, not to mention all the ballbusting a guy could handle from the peanut gallery in the back seats. Good times. At Ainslie’s apartment, we quickly put together a plan to book a hotel using Hotwire.ca (at Myke’s suggestion), then grab a bite to eat at a place that was supposed to have the best shwarma around (which, due to circumstances beyond their control, they didn’t that night). Somehow it was decided to stuff us all into the overpacked van, making it 7 passengers with only 6 seats to go around (the 7^th seat had been tucked away in the floor to make room for the gear). I’m pretty sure it was illegal the way we overpacked the van. Ainslie sat shotgun while I drove, Dave sat in the middle seat, and the other four got intimately close in the back seat. Too many people, too much stuff, not enough van real estate to go around.

I stopped at a red light while being told for the Nth time that you can’t turn right on a red. Just as the light changed to green, an ambulance started to approach from down the road on my right. Since it was only a relatively short distance away and since accelerating and turning sharply in the van caused everything to fall on everyone, I thought it best to just wait for the ambulance to pass – standard procedure in Ontario to give emergency vehicles right of way. Just before the ambulance passed, Ainslie turned to me and said, “Just so you know, this is unusual what you’re doing.” I said, “What? I’m waiting for the ambulance.” She said, “I know, but here in Montreal, nobody does that.” Just then, the ambulance passed, so I checked the light – still green – and turned right. Seconds later, more emergency vehicle lights were flashing behind me. I checked the sideview mirror since I couldn’t see out the back window and realized there was a cop behind me pulling me over! I couldn’t believe it! At first I thought he was going with the ambulance, but quickly realized he had his sights set on me! ‘Unbelievable,’ I thought, ‘we haven’t even reached our first gig yet and already we’ve had no van, destroyed a mic stand, had a severe space shortage, and now I’m getting pulled over while driving an illegally packed van with more passengers than seatbelts!’ I pulled alongside the parked cars and watched as the officer approached the van. My demented sense of humour quietly laughed at myself while I heard the whispers and swearing from the back seats of the van. Somehow even though I was about to get who knows what punishment from the law, I still thought it was pretty damn funny – still do. I rolled the window down and looked the officer in the eye as he said “Bonjour, parlez-vous Francais?” or something like that. I said no, “Anglais, s’il vous plait.” Here is a rough synopsis of our conversation:

COP: Do you know that you can’t turn right on a red light in Montreal?

TROY: Yes sir, I do.

COP: Why did you turn right on that red light back there?

TROY: What? I didn’t! The light was green!

COP: Well, why did you turn?

TROY: Because I waited for that ambulance to go by first, THEN I turned.

COP: Why did you turn right on the red light?

TROY: I didn’t! The light was green! I waited for the ambulance to go by before I turned.

COP: Well why didn’t the car behind you turn, as well?

TROY: I don’t know, but the light was green when I turned.

COP: Why didn’t you turn before the ambulance went by?

TROY: Because it was an ambulance! Why would I pull in front of an ambulance? I heard the sirens and saw the flashing lights just as my light turned green. I decided it would be best for me to wait until it passed. I then checked the light again and it was still green, so I turned.

COP: Why didn’t the car behind you turn, then?
TROY: I don’t know, I wasn’t driving that car. You’d have to ask them.

COP: Can I see your driver’s license and registration?

TROY: Sure, but this is a rental van, so I’ll show you the rental agreement; it’s in the glove compartment. (to Ainslie) Can you grab the rental agreement from there please?

Ainslie searches through the compartment, but can’t find the rental agreement.

TROY: The rental agreement must be in my backpack. I’ll have to get out and go around to the other side to get it.

COP: Ok, step out of the vehicle.

Troy gets out of the van.

TROY: Here, I’ll give you my license first.

COP: You have to get out of the van to give me your license?

TROY: What? No! I need to get out to get the rental agreement, but I figured I’d give you my license first since I have it here with me.

COP: Please come around to the other side of the vehicle.

For some extremely fortunate reason, the officer did not look inside to the back of the van at any point, plus the windows were tinted, so he didn’t see the overpacked van with too many passengers. As I came around to the other side of the van, I remembered that anyone who opens that passenger side door suffers the fate of everything spilling out onto them. I also remembered the spilled granola all over the place and thought, ‘Great, the last thing I need is for this guy to see granola all over the place and figure we’re a bunch of granola-eatin’ hippies traversing the country hiding, smoking, and doing who knows what in there.’ All of this from some spilled granola. Stupid, delicious granola. I carefully slid the side door open just a crack, simultaneously trying nonchalantly to shield any kind of view to the inside of the van from the officer while flailing my hand around wildly and snapping my fingers just inside the van door, hoping the backpack fairies in the backseat would heed my desperate hand gestures. Thankfully, they answered my prayer and hand flails by thrusting my pack into my hand. I pulled it out of the very small space I had allowed the door to open, quickly slid the door closed, and started searching through it for the rental agreement. As I was flailing my hand around inside the van, the officer spoke again.

COP: So I see by your plates that you are from Ontario?

TROY: Yes sir.

COP: Did you just arrive in Montreal?

TROY: Yeah, about half an hour ago. We stopped first at…

COP: Where are you from in Ontario?

TROY: Well, a few of us are from Toronto. I’m from St. Catharines, which is about half an hour from Niagara Falls.

At this point, I was starting to realize the rental agreement was not in my backpack after all, but I kept searching, not sure what else to do and wondering why this guy was now making conversation.

COP: Did you drive from there? How long did that drive take you?

TROY (stopping the search to face the cop to talk): Oh, I dunno. We left Toronto at 10 after 11 this morning, so…

COP: Did it take you 8 hours?

TROY: I dunno. Sure, I guess so. (resuming futile search for the documents that were clearly not in my pack)

COP (handing my license back to me and pausing a moment): Sir, I’ve misinterpreted the events. I’m sorry – you can go.

TROY (confused and incredulous): No wait, I have the agreement here somewhere. Just give me a sec…

COP: Sir, I apologize. I misinterpreted the events, so there is no issue. You may go ahead.

TROY: Um, ok. (pausing) Thank you.

I stuffed everything I had taken out coarsely back into my pack, slid the side door open just slightly, stuffed the backpack in, and returned back around to the driver’s seat. No one inside the van could hear the conversation between the officer and me since the windows were all up, plus their view was blocked by all of the gear packed up to the roof. I like to imagine they were all crying and hugging each other fearfully and couldn’t hear through their desperate, panicked sobs. I got in the van and closed the door. Everyone asked what happened. I just shook my head and smiled. “It’s all good,” I said, “I took care of it.” Ainslie looked at me and asked quietly, “Seriously? What happened?” I looked at her and said just loud enough for everyone to hear, “I paid him off.” “SERIOUSLY?!” she whispered back incredulously. I nodded yes and whispered, “No.” I smiled at her and winked, put the van in drive, and drove off. Merci Montreal et bonne nuit!

Our first gig of this tour now seemed like an impossible goal after all of the misadventures we had already encountered. Since parking also proved to be an impossible feat, I dropped everyone off in busy downtown Montreal while they went to get “the best shwarma around”. I drove around the craziness of the downtown area and parked illegally for about 15 minutes. I could do that since I had proven I was invincible against the Montreal police force (yeah, right). I picked everyone up again and we found our way to Shaika Café, our first gig. I half expected the place to be on fire or to explode when we arrived, but oddly enough, it didn’t. It was a nice café, larger than I had anticipated and a nice ambiance with artwork all around and a relatively relaxed atmosphere.

Myke played first with his foursome – Dave on lead guitar, Matt on bass, and Tom on drums. Tom sat this gig out for my set since he was still learning my music. We discovered during the show that one of the servers working that night at Shaika, a guy named Keith, had worked at the same coffeeshop in Sackville that we were scheduled to be playing a few days later, further adding to serendipity to our adventure.

After the show, we headed to our Hotwire-assigned hotel for the night. As it turned out, the hotel was called “The Maritime”; again, the Supreme Beings of Irony working their magic of serendipity considering our next destination; I’m sure they find the whole thing pretty funny. Since we wanted to be sure we all got into the room without having to pay for a second room, we had booked the hotel room for only four people. (I can hear my sister-in-law chastising me now.) We planned our execution of getting everyone into the hotel unnoticed that late at night. Laura, Tom, and Matt would slip into the hotel separately, Dave would stay in the van, and Myke and I would distract the front desk staff while checking in.

The man working the front desk was very pleasant and more alert than I expected, considering it was around 2:30am. Perhaps I couldn’t believe someone actually managed to sleep the night before. He checked us in and gave us two key cards. Myke and I returned to the van and gave one card to Laura, Tom, and Matt. I went back inside to ask the front desk guy about parking (and to distract him while the other three slipped discreetly into the hotel). When I asked about parking, he offered the hotel’s parking garage at a fee of $20 for the night. Considering we were leaving about 5 hours later, that was far more money than it was worth. I asked him about an alternate, outdoor parking lot that was cheaper. He suggested the other nearby hotel (Comfort Inn?), but they were $25. “So you’re trying to sell your cheaper lot to me by recommending a more expensive lot?” I asked. He smiled somewhat sheepishly and said he couldn’t think of anything else. I looked at Myke and very reluctantly came to accept the fact our options were limited to just the underground lot. Noticing our reluctance, the front desk guy looked past us to the van outside the front doors of the hotel. “Is that your van?” he asked. I thought the jig was up and he had spotted all 6 of us, especially since the other three had just come through the doors and had taken the elevator up to our floor. “Yeah, the one there out front,” I replied. “The blue one with the luggage thing on top?” he asked. He went on the explain that we wouldn’t be able to get the into their underground parking because of height restrictions. “You’ll have to take that luggage carrier off the van to fit it through the garage door.” The parking situation was getting worse for us. He thought about it a moment as Myke and were at a loss for any other option. The cargo carrier could be taken off the van, but we’d have to first unload it before taking it down. Then there was the problem of where to put it once it was down. While Myke and I discussed the horrible option of maybe storing the thing in our hotel room (which was even less desirable to us considering we were overcrowding the room already), the front desk guy offered up a pretty awesome solution. “Tell you what – you’re leaving early you said? Around 8am? Why don’t you just park it there in the unloading zone? I’ll give you guys a note so it will be alright.” Suddenly, life was sweet again. “Really? How much would that cost us?” “Nothing. I’ll give you a note to leave on your dash, as long as you leave before 9am.” He filled out a parking slip for us and we parked the van. Beautiful, life was good once again!

We collected our bags and headed upstairs to our room. When we stepped off the elevator, I was surprised to see Laura and Tom sitting on the floor with all of their luggage; Matt was nowhere to be seen. So much for normalcy returning to us; the misadventures live strong and free! “What’s going on?” I asked. In the short time they had been in the hotel, they already had a strange story to tell. Apparently, they found the room just fine. They slid their key card into the door and it opened, but the door would only open slightly before stopping. Thinking the door was somehow jammed, they closed the door and reopened it again using the key card. It still wouldn’t open properly, so Laura had reached inside to see if the latch had somehow managed to just catch the hook somehow. At that moment, a man who was already inside the darkened room grabbed her arm and started yelling at them in French. I can only imagine how surprised everyone must have been! I wish I could’ve seen the look on that man’s face when he was awoken by someone somehow opening the door to his hotel room and trying to unlatch his lock and then Laura’s face when the man grabbed her arm! I still laugh at the thought of the whole situation. And since they couldn’t go to the front desk to complain, they had been waiting for us the whole time to get to the floor. Let the misadventures of day 1 continue!

Dave accompanied me this time to the front desk. I approached the front desk guy with an attempt to look incensed, but I couldn’t keep the grin off of my face. I explained the story to the guy and his eyes exploded open with shock, concern, and confusion. It was awesome! He couldn’t believe this had happened and didn’t know how to explain it. I think he was pretty worried he’d get in a lot of trouble for the mix up and I can only imagine the man inside the hotel room would be giving his manager an earful the next morning. He quickly scrambled to assign us a new room and reprogram our key cards. Without skipping a beat, he immediately upgraded us from the small room with two double beds we had initially booked to a large room with two queen size beds! If he only knew how awesome that move was for 6 guests pretending to be four! We couldn’t have asked for a better outcome to such a strange situation! Victory! Vive la belle Hotel Maritime!

Dave and I proudly returned to our weary group to find Matt had rejoined the other three. I told them to collect their things – we’ve been upgraded to a bigger, better room! We cautiously entered our newly assigned room, half expecting the door to be latched and to have a room full of gay Frenchmen attack us from inside, but it was all good. We quickly figured out sleeping arrangements with Matt and Myke graciously taking the floor, giving the rest of us the two beds to share. Finally, the first incredibly long first day of the ROCKS & FIELDS Tour had come to its incredibly dramatic conclusion! Mon dieu! If the rest of the tour was going to be like these past two days, we were all in for one helluva ride! Moments later, I smiled and chuckled slightly as I immediately fell into unconsciousness even before my head hit the pillow.