90,000 MILES

Driving my car, I realize it is going to hit the 90,000 mile mark sometime on my way home from Maine this weekend.  This is very exciting.  It also means that I need an oil change.

I have a bad habit of missing important events like this -- momentous occasions such as the odometer rolling over.  As soon as I start heading home from Maine, I try to remember to watch the dashboard, but I keep getting distracted by such nonessential things as merging on to the highway and changing lanes at 80 mph.

I have a cardboard air freshener in my car, so I take it off its hanging place and shove it on top of my dash.  With the big orange air freshener just in the bottom of my line of sight, I won't forget to watch the odometer change, or so I hope.

As I bop along, I start calculating that the rollover to 90k should happen somewhere around the toll booths in Maine before the I-95 bridge over the Piscataqua River.  As the number gets closer, I try to stay in a lane that allows me time to glance down without endangering myself or others.  I count seconds and figure my average speed, watching the numbers only when I'm certain they're about to change.  This strategy serves me well, until...

(Not my car -- I was driving)

... Until at 89,999 miles, I realize I am almost at the tolls. This throws off my second-counting as I have to adjust my speed, slower and slower and slower as the speed through the tolls, even with an EZ Pass, is 10 mph.  I also cannot trust my lane choice any longer as there are no lines, and cars fly from one side of the road to the other, jockeying for the fastest toll lane.

But, I'm watching.  Carefully, yes, but I am.  I am not going to miss this big rollover for my little car.

As soon as I roll into the booth, I look down.  Still 89,999.  I'm edging ever so slightly when the green light tells me I can speed back up again.  Green light means GO, and GO means glance down once more before careening through cars that are fighting to get ahead of the eighteen-wheelers in the far right lanes.

And there it is, right there at the toll, right there at the green light: 90,000 miles. Good job little car.  Good job, Dodge Caliber.  Good job, Heliand.

I toss the colorful cardboard air freshener off the dashboard.  No need for any distractions now as it is, indeed, smooth sailing all the way home.