Questioning rentals

When a significant part of your job is making deliveries, sometimes you need a larger vehicle than what you have. And while my reliable old Chevy Venture with the heavy springs (I'm trying to think of a name for her: Betty? Veronica? Cloyce?) is great for most loads, from time to time I find I need to rent a bigger van. When that happens I go to U-Haul. You know, U-Haul: where you go when you feel like being a moving advertisement.
They have ads all over their trucks and vans. I get that. I know that's their right as they try to drum up business and keep their name out there. But what I don't get is the mixed message they send. Everything they have asks and answers: Need a van? Rent this one!
So, how do I take that? I have imagined being stopped somewhere only to have a guy come up to me, "I want to rent that van."
I reply, "But I'm renting it."
"So? I need a van and yours clearly states that I can rent it."
Or does it mean that I can sub-rent it? Perhaps I can tell that guy, "Yeah, okay, here's the keys. Need any moving materials?"
Well, how else do you interpret it?

The new used car

Well, Pops, I did it. I bought the car which is going to replace that last car of yours. I should have replaced it six months, maybe a year ago, but I didn't, because it was the last car you bought. But I did run into the ground, as we Cosgriffs do. It will only get me scrap value. Hell, maybe not that much.

The new one is a 2000 Chevy Venture. By new, I mean two years younger than your Plymouth Voyager. And it also has 17,000 more miles than the vehicle it's replacing. So I'm replacing an old car with a vaguely newer one with significantly more miles. A newer car with more miles; I have to believe that you and Grandpa Joe are getting a kick out of that.

The Venture has heavy duty springs, what you used to call overloaders, if I remember rightly. That's part of what attracted me. With some of the loads we've had to carry I feel that's a real plus. It's a shorter van than your Voyager, but I figure I can pile more in it with those tougher springs. In fact, I think I could deliver some of those old Hobart welders we used to rent using this van. You guys like that, eh?

Her inaugural run will be Thursday, when I take a machine to Bad Axe up in the thumb. You remember Boom's Rental up there, right? We've dealt with them since the Seventies, as you know, and I'm sure you made that trip a few times dad. If that works well, and I believe it will, then next Tuesday I'll take it on about a 700 mile loop, from Detroit to the Electric Eel plant in Springfield, Ohio, to Indianapolis, then back to Eel for a load to bring back here to the D. In short, she's getting a baptism of fire.

You and Joe like that too I bet.