Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by magicalhippo 2081 days ago
I'm from Norway. Zip code thing completely threw me off first time I was renting a car in the US. Drove up to the pump, whipped out my card and... what? Why on earth do they need to know my zip code?

Didn't know any zip codes offhand so ended up paying inside, which turned out I had to do in advance of course, another aha moment. Inside the cashier naturally asked how many gallons I wanted. I had no idea. Rental car was not one I'd ever driven before, and I hadn't looked in the manual for the size of the tank. I took some comfort that the cashier had no idea either. And so there I was trying to guess how many liters the car's tank might be, how much might be left and converting that into gallons.

Back outside with a conservative 4 gallons to pump, the guy behind in line kindly informed us of the zip code of the area we were in, for next time. Came in very handy.
2 comments
astura 2081 days ago
>Didn't know any zip codes offhand

Not a fan of Beverly Hills, 90210, eh?

link
saagarjha 2081 days ago
I live in California and I didn’t know that :( Actually, the only ZIP code I can remember is 95014, and that’s because I live in it…
link
monadic2 2081 days ago
Is that zip code itself famous?

Edit: this is referring to a popular 90s american television teen drama.

link
astura 2080 days ago
90210 is the most famous zip code in America because there was a really popular show in the 90s that referenced that zip code called "Beverly Hills, 90210" (commonly known as just "90210"). It had various spinoffs going into the 2010s.

Because that zip code was so famous an unrelated reality show was named "Dr. 90210" about plastic surgeons in the Beverly Hills area.

link
perl4ever 2081 days ago
I don't think the area you were in had anything to do with it. The zip code is supposed to match the card.

And you don't have to guess the exact amount of fuel, you just pick a number greater than the cost of a fill-up and less than infinity/your credit limit.

link
magicalhippo 2081 days ago
> zip code is supposed to match the card

Yeah that I gathered, but the closest thing to a zip code we got here in Norway is four digits, and it didn't accept that.

> you don't have to guess the exact amount of fuel

Of course, but the cashier forgot to mention that I'd get back what I didn't use, and being a bit off balance already by the new experiences I didn't think of this myself.

link