When I began driving north from Albuquerque last Wednesday afternoon, the left-front tire on my Alamo rental car (a black Hyundai Elantra) had a weak tire pressure reading. I was pressed for time so I just drove on. But on my journey back to Albuquerque, which began yesterday in the mid afternoon, the tire pressure was down to 19. And then 15 and 14, and then 10 and 9. I stopped twice to inject compressed air (in the Colorado towns of Rico and Dolores) but the pressure stayed low.

I called an Alamo rep to report the problem. She suggested that I drive to Durango La Plata airport and exchange my Elantra for another car. There was one chubby 20something woman manning the desk for not just Alamo but also National and Enterprise, and after serving several just-arrived customers for an hour she told me there were no available cars to exchange.

By the time I arrived in Farmington the tire pressure was near zero. Call it flat. It took several infuriating, late-night calls with a variety of undereducated Alamo 20somethings with a minimal command of English to finally arrange for a tow-truck guy to drop by the Journey Inn motel and change the tire. (It didn’t happen until this morning.) Except they wanted me to pay $75 for the service.

HE: “It’s your car and your flat tire, and you want me to pay the local tow-truck guy?”

The guy removed the empty tire and replaced it with one of those baby tires…fine. Except the baby tire has a glued-on warning that says in bold letters that I shouldn’t drive faster than 50 mph or 80 kph.

HE to tow-truck guy: “So I can’t drive to Albuquerque with this thing?” Tow-truck guy: “I wouldn’t.”

I guess the only responsible thing is to buy a decent tire somewhere in Farmington and have it put on and then work out the expenses with Alamo back at Albuquerque Sunport. But before I do this I want assurances from the Alamo guys that they’ll deduct this cost from my six-day rental fee of $377. Excerpt I’ve called them five times this morning and they won’t pick up, and I can’t leave a voicemail message.

I also hated the way the out-sourced Alamo reps asked me if I’m calling “from a safe location.” One of them actually asked me if I was “feeling safe” at the end of one of the calls. This is a Millennial thing…”are you feeling safe, oh my little squishy weenies?”

HE to Alamo Millennials: “Nobody wants to feel threatened or uncertain or insecure…nobody wants to be Janet Leigh in that motel room scene in Touch of Evil…but my feelings of safety and assurance have nothing to do with you or your level of barely-there, nodding-out service.”