877 801

I’ve wondered absent-mindedly on occasion how many klicks (kilometers) a car or truck might be capable of traveling during its lifetime.  Riding the local buses will do that to a person.  Most of the buses are purchased, likely used, from Japan.  I have figured that the engine is usually the best-built part of the automobile whether it’s a car or truck.  Like the human body the doors, hood, trunk, and even the undercarriage can start to go as it were just like a gold 1971 Chevrolet Lemans I used to know as a kid, but the engine is the heart and once it is finished the rest doesn’t matter; the car is dead, consigned to join the scrap heap.  Having driven in friends’ beaters and seeing the odometer turnover two hundred and fifty-five thousand or upwards of 300K was, I thought, remarkable.  How far could a car travel if the owner reasonably maintained the rest of the vehicle?  Who would want it?  How would it look?  How much would that kind of maintenance cost over the long haul?

Now, here is a number that simply overwhelms the senses.  877 801.  I was given preferential seating for this fare, so I was seated right beside the driver.  Out of curiosity, I casually stared at the vehicle’s control panel on the dashboard.  I was stunned at the magnitude of it.  It was a colossus.  Upon closer observation, I realized that the digits had stopped rolling over.  From little I understand about motor vehicles, I seem to recall that except for going through some intensive steps one cannot roll back the odometer on a car.  Imagine my awe when I read 877 801 on the dusty banged up console that was decorated with stickers of John Cena and Batista of the WWE.  And that was the last registered kilometer this embattled passenger van had counted. 

It is astounding that this bus in its horribly dilapidated condition with racing slicks for tired had crept along, up to, but not past this hallowed milestone.  How long had the odometer ceased to function?  What should the gauge actually read?  Terrifying in some respects.   What would actually happen when the Toyota’s heart finally and irrevocably crapped out?  Perhaps nothing.  Perhaps, and this would be fitting, it would keel over on its side with a lethargic thud; a trail of dust gently puffing out from underneath like a horse getting put out of its misery in that classic Mel Brooks’ movie Blazing Saddles.