In 2002, I owned a 1985 Volvo 240 Wagon that was my fist car. It had been in a couple of accidents and I had slowly rebuilt the exterior over the years, including repainting it from gray to Coca-Cola red (that was the actual name of the color). The car had 292,000 miles on it, and I had discovered that Volvo would send you metal decals for being in the “high mileage” club. I had my 100,000 and 200,000 mile decals proudly attached to the grille and wanted my 300,000 decal.
I was finishing my first year as a teacher at a private boarding school, and the Volvo had no air conditioner and my hour drive in North Carolina was pretty hot. A friend of the family was offering to sell me their Camry wagon and I had decided it was finally time to retire the Volvo; but not before trying to get those last 10,000 miles. During a week long spring break, I decided to get a large chunk of those miles in one long road trip.
My father and brother and I have an informal contest to see who can go to all 50 states first. I plotted a trip that would take in Nebraska, the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. Everything went as planned until I stopped at a rest area in Fargo. I stopped to stretch, but also to check out an annoying rattle in the back of the car. I found a loose piece of plastic trim work and, lacking a screw driver, pulled out my key to tighten the screw. As I twisted the screw to tighten it, the key snapped in half.
I was under a pretty tight time constraint, needing to be at a cousins wedding at the end of the trip. As I looked at the two parts of the key in my hand I thought that I had two possible choices. I could call AAA and have them make a new key, but that would take hours; or I could stick the two pieces of the key in the ignition and see if the car would start. If it didn’t, I would still have to call AAA to have them get the key out and make me a new one and I would be in the same position. It wasn’t until later that I realized there was a third option.
Of course I decided to put the two pieces of the key in the ignition. Nervously, I turned the key and the car started right up! Knowing that if things went wrong later I might not be in such a great place to wait for AAA I turned off the car and pulled out the half of the key that I had access too, put it back in the ignition and turned it again. For a second time, success! I got back on the road and continued on my way.
I ended that day at a hotel in Madison, Wisconsin. I locked all the doors except the tailgate, since I didn’t have a key to open the door. I slept well and got up the next morning ready to knock Michigan off my list and head back east. I drove from my room to the office to check out, and when I came out and put the key in the ignition I couldn’t turn the key. My luck had run out.
This is when I discovered my third option, which was that AAA could not get a piece of a key out of the ignition without drilling the ignition and needing to buy a new one. Now I wanted those last few thousand miles, but I was about to buy another car in a few days and as hard as I tried I could not justify spending hundreds a dollars on a car that I was trying to get rid of anyway. I tried sticking things in the ignition with glue or tape or anything I could think of to get the key out. When I finally admitted defeat I had to undergo the indignity of paying $50 to a scrap yard to come and pick up my car and take it away.
The tow truck driver was kind enough to give me a ride to the Greyhound station and I was able to watch my Coca Cola red Volvo, with nothing wrong other than a half a key stuck in the ignition, as it was taken to the scrap yard. After a 25 hour ride on the bus back to North Carolina, I bought my Camry and drove to Pennsylvania for my cousins wedding. The final odometer reading was 292,840.