Four winters ago, the speedometer in our car quit. It just sat there on zero and wouldn’t move, no matter how fast we would drive it down the highway, at whatever speed we were driving it, who knows?
It was a dilemma. So, as I do with most dilemmas of this nature, I sat down to figure it out. And this is what I concluded.
1. This thing was unfixable. No question about it. Speedometers cannot be fixed.
2. On the unlikely chance that it could be fixed, it would probably cost at least $1,000 to fix it, maybe more. Maybe $2,000. That latter figure is about what the car was worth at the time.
3. Anyone, supposing he or she had the smarts, who could do the improbable and fix the speedometer, would likely have a shop in California or somewhere in northern British Columbia. It would cost another $2,000 to go to either of these shops to have it fixed.
4. And finally, and most importantly, this thing was unfixable. Even if I drove to California, the guy there would look it over and tell me he couldn’t fix it.
So, what to do, what to do?
Given all the above certainties, it was obvious that the only thing to do was drive the car into the ground without the benefit of a speedometer. There is a certain art to that, a skill I learned in time.
Other family members were not so adept at judging speeds without the benefit of a speedometer, and the speeding tickets began piling up. I paid them dutifully as the cost of doing business.
But a revolt was underway and I could see it coming. Finally, no one but me would drive the car. Fortunately, we had another car with a functioning speedometer and so that one saw a lot of use.
But this could not go on.
I dropped into a car dealership one day and asked them about fixing it. As I expected, repairing a speedometer in a car like this involves pretty much the same level of skill as leaving the space shuttle on a tether to jig a broken windshield wiper.
However, this news. There is a place an hour’s drive away called Canada Speedometer.
That was encouraging to hear and so I spent another month thinking about that.
Thursday, I phoned them and arranged to take the car in on Friday morning. I drove there, handed a young man my keys and that was the last I saw of my car. I sat in the waiting room as he examined the unfixable speedometer, and waited patiently for him to return with the bad news.
An hour after I gave him my keys, the lad came into the room and handed them back to me.
“You’re all set,” he said.
Had he said, “It’s twins, a boy and girl. Congratulations,” I could not have been happier. But I didn’t understand.
“You mean it’s fixed?” I asked, and as he explained how he had fixed the unfixable thing, I stood there stunned, thinking up names for the twins. I was leaning toward Kenneth and Carol. I have always liked Carol.
The bill was $226. And the speedometer is guaranteed for as long as I own the car, which, coincidentally, is now worth $226.
But I have found that life is pretty much one big, long regret. Had I gone to the phone five minutes after the speedometer broke four years ago, I would have been up and running and could have avoided endless hours of worry, multiple brushes with the law and a near violent revolt by members of my family, even the one who vowed to love me and support me till I am dead.
I have not been able to stay out of the car since Friday. I am out driving up and down the roads just for the pleasure of seeing that speedometer rise to 20, then 60, then 80 …
Who could know a speedometer is fixable?
My brain, it could use an adjustment or two.
©2018 Jim Hagarty
