A $55-Investment or Why Join AAA

(Leon Schumacher, ???, 1992)

I was one of those, who thought that buying a car might be cheaper than renting one. So I bought one. Even though it was not the cheapest car available I thought it may be a good idea to join AAA. They immediately provide you with a huge stock of maps and a plastic car key. You can return (every day) to get maps as often as you like or need. So I had my nice car, with lots of little lights inside and we went on trips. On one of these trips one of these lights decided to go on.

A nice little red light marked 'engine'. When you are about 250 miles from home and you cannot find the smallest hint and the car shows no signs of illness, what do you do ? I decided that one red light more or less would not keep me from driving. After 170 miles and 20 kilos more because of an extensive dinner (4 persons), strange noises came out of my engine. As the noise disturbed my listening to the radio, I decided to stop. The little red light still worked fine, and as it was dark meanwhile we were glad to have at least this little red light. I realized that the noises were caused by a loose fan belt, because the transmission belt straightener had lost some screws. We had some of these burning sticks in the trunk, but do not ask us how to get them burning. After ten minutes of reading in the instruction manual, I found the emergency light (red) switch under the steering wheel. Now we were standing in the dark with all our different red lights on expecting someone to stop. It took us about half an hour to realize that waiting for help was an illusion, and so we continued slowly on the emergency lane until the Highway Patrol was behind us (red lights on).

Those guys from the Highway Patrol normally don't like cars standing around on there highway but just call a tow-away service. I asked the officer to call the AAA, he gave me plenty of advises but was pleased, and twenty minutes later the AAA-truck stopped in front of my car and the problem could be fixed temporarily .This whole operation and a possible towing away may cost a couple of hundred dollars; you can save all this (I did) by an $55 investment in AAA. You may have to buy another car, but that is a different story.