On Tue, 01 May 2007 23:23:42 -0400, Jeff Wisnia
wrote:

My car rental tale goes like this:

SWMBO and I rented a car in Orlando and as we drove off she pulled her
cell phone charger out of her purse and plugged it into the lighter socket.

The little red LED on the charger didn't come on as it always does so I
figured some previous renter had blown out the lighter fuse and the
rental place had little reason to check for that.

So, since we were going to be there for a week and didn't have a line
voltage charger with us I "whipped a youey" and went back to the place
to tell them about the problem.

I was shocked, shocked, to hear the girl behind the counter say, "Oh,
the boss had all the lighter sockets disabledd because our cars are all
"non-smoking". (Oh yeah, that's going to stop some pig from lighting up
with a match or a Bic lighter.)

I told her that wouldn't do and after some more pressure from me she got
one of the techs to crawl under the dash and stick a fuse in the empty
slot to power up the lighter socket.

Very funny. I don't smoke, never have, but I didn't like it when I
heard they were taking the lighters out of some new cars. Like they
won't even sell a car to a smoker. Big Brother telling people what to
do.

And when I thought I was driving a truck from Texas, I made sure they
had a socket so I could plug in the compass, or the tv. They all did.

But now that there are so many cellphones, I would think cigarette
lighters would be back on the carmakers required list. Even if they
don't put an actual lighter in the hole, one could still buy one.

Jeff