Remember the Alamo

The last few days have been pretty uneventful...more boogie boarding, more swimming in the pool, more beautiful sights.  Today, however, something happened that I've never had to deal with before...a broken-down rental car.  Shortly after lunch, we went down to Poipu Beach to do some boogie boarding.  After about an hour, we headed back to the minivan to return to our condo.  We threw our boogie boards in the back, got in, but when I turned the key in the ignition, the horn started honking and nothing more.  I tried it a few more times, but it was the same thing.  Unfortunately, I had left my cell phone at our condo.  Thankfully, just down the road was a pay phone, and so I went there to call Alamo Rental Car.  I was told that I just needed to reset the security system by looking the van from the outside with the remote, waiting a few seconds, and then unlocking it with the remote.  I did that...but it was the same thing:  Honking horn and nothing more.  There was a local guy there who was observing our blaring horn fun and he offered to let me use his cell phone.  So I called Alamo again and this time I was told that the whole system had probably frozen up and that they would need to send a tow truck out with a new rental car on it and make the exchange.  The only problem is that it would take 2-3 hours.  Mem found a couple there who were willing to take her back to our condo, where she could get my cell phone and call one of the families in the church who would then pick our daughters up while I waited behind with the van.  Finally, at about 5:00 p.m., after waiting for about 90 minutes, the new rental van showed up.