Setting off for the big road trip to Nova Scotia and PEI, to find the cigarette lighters in the vehicle don’t work. No big deal if you don’t smoke, eh? Well yes, it’s a big deal if you have two iPhones, two tablets and a laptop, a DSLR camera and assorted other electronics to charge while traveling.

This rental company didn’t have a vehicle ready when we went to pick it up and we had to wait an hour and a half while one was ferried from another location, so I had low expectations when I called to ask for help. “We got no cars today. Thank you please”, was not what I wanted to hear. I finally lost it and used some colorful language when he went on to tell me, in all seriousness, that I could drive over to the Niagara Falls branch and ask them if they had any cars.

I explained this was far from an ideal solution. He said we could go to the branch at Toronto airport. “They got lots cars there. Just swap.’ In the absence of a viable alternative I said we could do this as it was in our way, though the thought if the time we would waste as well as the messing around transferring everything from one car to another made me even more upset. Time, I thought, for Plan B.

I called the local garage, Tamburri’s, and asked if they could take a look at the fuses. No problem. Bring it over. Ten minutes later we had a new fuse and fully operational cigarette lighters front and back. Off we go. Best $20 tip I ever happily gave. Middle of nowhere, here we come.