A Pickup Truck Load of Unmitigated Gall

I come to my Blogger dashboard this fine Christmas Eve day and what do I see?

"1 Comment Waiting Moderation"

It's always nice to get a comment. It tells me someone has read my dibble and even taken the time to say something about it. I quickly open up the comment and read a semi-cryptic message from someone named Frances, with an e, the female form. I have a cousin Francis, but he isn't a she, so I rule him out. I don't have any followers or friends names Frances. Perhaps I am attracting a new audience; perhaps a new recruit to the magical land of Larry.

However, what in the world do they mean with this comment?

"It's fortunate enough that they have their own pickup trucks. Others have to go for a pickup truck rental service just to move their things."

The comment was made on a post I did quite awhile back called  Photographs of Dads and Sons and Pickup Trucks. (You can click on that title if ou wish to read it.) I'll tell you what it was about right here tough. It was about photographs of sons and dads and pickup trucks, duh!

Actually it was a nostalgic piece, perhaps just short of a tribute to my dad. It was a response to a Post by my friend Ronald on his Retired in Delaware Blog.  I was comparing simularities between his relationship with his father and my own to my dad. The only mention of pickup trucks was in the title and this paragraph at the end:


"One other thing, though, in Retired in Delaware's Post is the pickup truck. Funny now, but this is something we saw quite differently.

On the right is my dad's pickup truck (and my teenage shadow taking the photo). My friend, Ron, was humiliated by having to ride in the back of his dad's pickup. I loved riding in the back of this one. That was where I wanted to ride, me and my friend Richard.

We thought it was cool.

There are some stories about that pickup, but for another time."

So why this comment about our dad's being fortunate while others must rent pickups? Did Francis grow up poorer than Ronald and me?  Was Frances jealous of our families enormous bounty of owning a used, battered pickup truck?  I certainly realize there were families worse off than either Ronald or myself.

Or is Frances a sensitive soul concerned about the downtrodden of our world, those underprivileged souls who must put along this world in rented pickup trucks? 

I clicked up Frances' link to find out something about her and this is what I got.

That's right, an ad for Hertz rentals.

My sensitive little Frances turns out to be some pathetic troll toiling for Hertz. What is her profession? Does she sit in a corner of a Hertz back room hunched over a keyboard all day surfing the web for the key word "Pickup Truck"?  This is Hertz idea of a great marketing campaign, sending comments to any blogger who mentions such a vehicle no matter the context of the post? The brilliant mind of the corporate types on display making spam in the quest to make hay.

Shame! Shame! Shame! You know who I rent vehicles from when it is necessary? Enterprise, they come right to your door and pick you up.

But wait, there's more! You see that ad above, well, tell you what I'm goin' do. You read this Post right now and I'll thrown in another Ad absolutely free, you don't pay $19.95 and you don't even have to pay shipping and handling.

I looked on that Hertz ad and saw the usual suspects down at the bottom, the Facebook, Twitter, Google+ boxes. I didn't know what the fourth box was, the blue one with IN on it. I should have known, but I didn't, even though I guess it was obvious. I just had never seen it before, so I clicked it and it opened this in LinkedIn.

Yeah,yeah, another ad from Hertz, but there was something unique and maybe a bit disturbing about it.

Look there on the right in the middle. There is a familiar face. Hertz has the unmitigated gall to put my LinkedIn profile picture on one of their ads as if I am somehow endorsing Hertz?  Who gave Hertz permission to use my image in their placards? was it Sneaky-Surfer Frances?

I don't want to hear any moaning and groaning from Hertz about this post. If they can plaster my face on their ads, then I can plaster their ads on my Post.  If Hertz ever chances upon this diatribe the only thing they need send me is an apology. I don't care about comments from dweebs like Frances, but I do take umbrage at unauthorized use of my image as a marketing tool.