It started out just like any other trip. Fly in. rent a car, get to the hotel, unpack, and get to work. And that’s exactly how it began. Flying into Newark, rent a Kia Optima, and driving out to Long Island where Marilyn taught PAINTER for the week at the Long Island Photo Workshop. Great School, Great People, Great Week. To finish off this GREAT WEEK, we were meeting Marilyn’s cousins for dinner in Manhattan, Friday night. So we drove back to Jersey, emptied out the car at the hotel we were staying at for the one night, and drove back to Manhattan. The car rental office was at the hotel in Newark, so we figured we’d just drop off the car Friday night, and take the shuttle to the airport Saturday morning.

Sounds like a good plan, right?

We parked the car in a New York City Licsensed garage on West End Ave. at 7:30pm. We went back at 11:30pm to get the car, and the attendant brought out an Audi. I told him this was not our car, so he put that one back, and brought us out a Mitsubishi……BOTTOM LINE…….NO KIA OPTIMA ANYWHERE!!!! Would you believe they gave someone else our rented car. First of all…..How STUPID do you have to be, to not know that this is NOT your car, and drive away with it? And how STUPID do you have to be, to want to give me someone elses car?…………At this point, it was only logical to call the Police…..Fast Fowarding to 1:30 in the morning…….the garage people think they know who has the car……..They paid for a cab to take us back to Jersey…..Insurance claims were made…….The car was returned to it’s rightful owner on Monday afternoon……….No damage…case closed………By the way……New Yorks Finest from the 20th precinct, Officers Soto and Vanderlingh, handled this problem with perfection…..Thank you

Michael…..

ps: from Marilyn: This was so unbelievable! Only to US would this happen!!