How to Respond When You Dent a Rental Car.

I dented my rental car last week on a family vacation and it almost ruined the entire trip.

This past week was spent in Glacier National park with my two boys. We had been planning this for over a year. On Wednesday I had a speaking engagement for some entrepreneurs in Kalispell MT, and the next 5 days we’d spend fishing, rafting, and exploring Glacier National park. 

The trip was 95% awesome, except for the 5% that wasn’t.

“Going to the Sun Road” in Glacier Natl park is a legendary drive. However, since there was still snow on the higher elevations of the road, a major section was blocked off to cars…but not bikes 😉

Per recommendation from a friend, we decided to rent e-bikes which give every pedal an extra boost and trek the blocked off road. 

The bike rental guy casually said, “Yeah, we’ll just pop a bike rack to the back of your car, and you can drive them up to the road block and ride from there.”

I was pretty nervous about this since we were renting a Turo, and the last thing I wanted to do was cause a scratch or a ding (especially since I declined the optional insurance package -__-).

The bike guy assured me, “We do this on rental cars every day…you’ll be fine”.

I nervously watch him set up the rack and watch diligently as he removes the bike batteries to make them lighter, and load the bikes to the rack. All was well.

We drove to the road closure and had a majestic ride. Speeding up 6% grades and pausing for the legendary views was one for the memory books. It started raining on the descent which made for a great adventure.

Tired, and joy filled, I load everything onto the rack and drove back to the e-bike rental location.

The moment we removed the last bike from the rack it was CRYSTAL CLEAR that one of the bike pedals had left a nice dent into the rental car.

Bruh!

The bike guy could see my smile invert IMMEDIATELY.

He said, “Yeah, you were supposed to remove the batteries from the bikes before loading them because this rack isn’t designed for that extra weight.” He DID tell me this when we picked them up, but I had completely forgot in my blissful ignorance from the amazing ride.

I was fuming…not at the bike guy, but rather myself. He gave me the instructions, but my mind was in so many places when he loaded the bikes, I missed a critical instruction: remove the batteries.

Now at this point in the trip, I was reading a book called The Practicing Mind by Thomas Sterner, which is all about helping us understand that we rarely live in the present moment. We’re always living in the future or the past. 

Judging ourselves for actions we’ve taken that remind us of our previous bad decisions- “I will never change”, or focused on some future goal- “I have that project due in a month, I have so much to prepare for”.

The joy is in the moment…experiencing what there is to experience, fully and completely. We’ve all heard the stories of those on their death beds who say, “I wished I worked and worried less, and simply spent more time enjoying moments with my family.”

Maybe like me, you’ve been able to get there from time to time. Just being fully present in the moment. And it’s blissful…until you dent a rental car.

I tried to hold it in, so as not to ruin a legendary family trip. But the rest of the day I was grumpy, and short with the boys.

I didn’t know someone could be pissed off while eating a huckleberry pie, but I found a way. 

One of my biggest fears is being viewed as “irresponsible”. This was a screaming example of that fear to me.

I woke up in the middle of the night, unable to sleep and had to journal it out. Here were the questions I asked myself (shout out to Byron Katie for the inspiration):

What happened? I dented the rental car.

What am I feeling? Angry, embarrassed, and ashamed.

What am I thinking? I’m irresponsible and don’t pay attention.

What am I making this mean? I’ll never get ahead in life because I make careless decisions.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Geeze, that’s a little harsh don’t you think? You made a mistake. Don’t beat yourself up about it.”

But we all do it. We all have silent judgements about ourselves, our decisions, and what it means about us, others, or the future. As my friends at Landmark education say, “We are constant, never ending, meaning making machines.”

Last three questions are the game changer.

Is this thought true? Will I never get ahead in life because I made a careless decision?

-Of course not. I’ve made bad decisions, I’ve made good decisions. This was one bad decision, one day, over the course of a long life.

How might the opposite be true? It’s a good thing that I dented the car.

What? How could it possibly be good that I dented the car?

Well, denting the car wasn’t exactly ideal, but this could be an opportunity. It could be an opportunity to teach my boys about honesty and how to handle mistakes. 

Before dropping the car off, we went and got the vehicle detailed. Not usually necessary with a rental, but I felt it was the least we could do.

I message the host letting them know what happened, and how sorry I was for the mistake. And then offered to pay for whatever the cost might be.

The host replies, “Oh, you’re so sweet. I’m pretty sure that dent was already there before you picked up the car. Don’t worry about it.”

For real?

Did I just almost ruin a family vacation for something that didn’t actually happen?

Yep.

How often do we do this? Something happens and we make it mean that we’re terrible, people aren’t trustworthy, or the world is going to end.

The reality is…something happened…the end.

What we make it mean is up to us. Only when we get into the present moment can we choose the meaning that empowers us.

We had a great trip. That journalling exercise really helped me move past the experience. I wish it was a little sooner, but you know what…that’s for me to keep practicing.

How about you? Have you ever had something happen that you blew out of proportion, only to let it ruin your day, week, month?

How might asking yourself these questions have helped?

What happened?

What am I feeling?

What am I thinking?

What am I making this mean?

Is that thought true?

How might the opposite be true?

What’s an empowering meaning I COULD make from this experience?

Try it out. You might just discover that you’re not as horrible as you think!