No hamsters were harmed in the passing of this milestone

I just rolled four nines over! Time to party!

No, I’m not a poker player. I wouldn’t know a full house from an outhouse. Those nines I’m talking about rolled over in my car.

I was driving to the grocery store this morning, and as I passed the gas station on the corner, I glanced down to see how the tank was holding out. And that’s when I noticed those numbers on the odometer: 119,999.

I was a click away from 120K! That’s a dozen with four zeros chasing along behind!

I know that’s not such a big deal these days, because plenty of cars rack up some serious K’s before they crap out. Mine is a 2002 Honda CRV, which I call my “Urban Assault Vehicle.” Honda puts cars together so well there’s a better chance of you getting tired of the car before the car gets tired of racking up the miles.

Still, I remember when cars were lucky to live long enough to six figures. It was a big deal to watch a gang of zeros line up on your odometer, so seeing 120,000 on my CRV-UAV felt like a milestone for me.

I found it hard to concentrate on the road because I didn’t want to miss the big moment. I know you’re supposed to pull over if you want to send a text, but it’s pretty hard to park the car if you’re waiting for the odometer to turn over. You’d be waiting a long time. And then a lot longer.

And so I kept rolling, glancing up at the traffic and down at the numbers taunting me from the dashboard. If I rear-ended somebody, I hoped they would send a cop who was close to retirement. He would be old enough to understand the mojo of a high-mileage moment. If a cop younger than 40 showed up, I’d have to lie and tell him I crashed because I was texting my BFF or downloading some app. Otherwise he would think I was an idiot.

Although my car is more than a decade old, it still has a digital odometer, and that means that there is no tenth-of-a-mile meter to tell you that you’re getting warm, getting hot, and burning up when it comes to flipping a number. Digital odometers are nowhere near as much fun as the old rolling-dial odometers.

Remember those? They had a bunch of wheels on a spindle, and each wheel was numbered from zero to nine. When the nine on one wheel turned over, it caught on the wheel just to the left of it and both clicked over at the same time. When you had two nines side-by-side, they caught the wheel to the left and all three of them popped over. The nines turned to zeros.

When you flipped a big number, with five or six wheels all locking up to lurch over at the same time, you could almost feel the car strain with the tension. And with some of the rattle-traps I drove before, I could afford an automobile worthy of the name; I worried if the hamster powering the drive-wheel would make it over the hump without huffing and puffing his way into a cardiac event.

Forty years ago I drove an old, battered Opel Kadett station wagon, and when it neared 50,000 miles, my wife and I decided it was time to host a party.

It was the early 1970s, we had a baby in the crib, and we couldn’t afford to run off to a pub or a restaurant to celebrate, so we called a bunch of friends to come over on Friday night and help us ring in our 50K moment. Four couples took us up on the offer because there wasn’t much else to celebrate in the early ’70s.

Unfortunately, by Thursday it became clear to me that I would pass the semi-centennial milestone sometime by noon Friday if I continued driving to work. I took short-cuts whenever I could.

On Friday afternoon, I parked the car in the cinder alley next to the railroad tracks behind our apartment because I didn’t want to go around the block to park in front. Still, the damage was done, because I had rolled two-tenths of a mile over 50,000 miles.

The party would be ruined.

But then a brainstorm hit me. I called my buddy Mike because he knew more about cars than I did.

“Hey, Mike,” I asked him, “what happens to your car’s mileage when you drive backwards?”

“Are you saying that you ruined the party?” he asked with a note of panic in his voice.

“No, no, nothing like that,” I lied. “Just asking.”

“Well, it depends on the car,” he said. “Some of them reverse the mileage when you drive backwards.”

“Thanks. Bye,” I said. I dashed out to the alley to find out.

I backed down the cinder alley, and sure enough, the numbers crept backward — all the way back to 49,999.9.

The party was saved, thanks to German engineers who probably wanted to find a way to go back in time and change a few things.

That night, right at midnight, all ten of us went out to the alley and climbed into that tiny Opel Kadett like a crowd of circus clowns carpooling to the big top—with a sleeping baby clown along for good measure. We rolled down the alley until the numbers caught… hesitated… then clicked over to a five chased by a gaggle of zeros.

The clowns cheered. One of them cried. The engine-hamster cursed me for waking him for a midnight workout…

…and this morning, when I pulled off the street into the grocery-store parking lot, my 2002 Honda CRV was still hung at 119,999, so I took a couple laps around the lot until the little black digital numbers flicked soundlessly to 120,000.

I pulled into a space, turned off the engine, and pumped my fist in celebration.

But it was a bit lonely without even a huffing hamster to high-five.

• Author, musician, and storyteller TR Kerth is a retired teacher who has lived in Sun City Huntley since 2003. Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com. Can’t wait for your next visit to Planet Kerth? Then get TR’s book, “Revenge of the Sardines,” available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online book distributors.

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