Twelve bucks, 1/2 hour

Photo: RomarioIen I

Twelve bucks, but it adds up. . . .

I haven’t been to Florida for a few years. It is usually a nice place to come and warm up in early April, but not so this year, with the balmy spring weather back in the Okanagan.

It is still nice to embrace the sun’s hot rays down here at the Sun N Fun Air Show - the largest of it’s kind in North America, aimed at the smaller aircraft community.

I am here rolling out the launch of the PAL-V flying car, and meeting potential new clients. I have a busy day ahead of me.

What I have come to find out here in Florida is that almost everything takes half an hour and costs $12.

What started at the airport has now become a little funny.

On arriving at Tampa, we went to the rental car desk to get our car - what we were paying seemed, at the time, to be an amazing deal. 

Until we came to the questions.

The first was an offering of an upgrade for $12. We asked how long to get to our destination, and we were told 30 minutes. No need for an upgrade then, so we politely declined. 

I am here with my business partner, so we asked about having both of us able to drive the rental. Easy fix - $12 per day for the additional driver. 

All of a sudden the deal was not looking so good.

The ability for both of us to be able to drive needed to happen anyway, so we swallowed the cost. 

Next we were challenged on insurance. For the first time in my experience, the company would not accept credit card coverage. The cost? You guessed it. $12 per day.

Our good value rental was now three times the price in what probably amounted to a 30 minute period of time.

Then the polite car rental person looked at us and asked, “Do you know about how our tolls work around here?” 

Let me guess.

I said, “$12?” 

“Oh no,” he said. “They are only $4,” totally missing the joke.

Over the next twenty-four hours we found out that my guess was more accurate. While the toll might only be $4, the booths were annoyingly close together, so we quickly (in about half an hour) spent $12 on the tolls going to our destination.

Anytime I have put anything in my GPS it advises that I am 30 minutes away. 

Anytime I buy a lunch and a drink it is $12. 

You soon get used to doing math down here.

My guess is the minimum wage in Florida might be around $24?

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.