Analog Superiority?

Just yesterday I was pondering the fact that my VUE was due for routine car maintenance. Not only because it was just that time, but also because I face a looming 3,400 mile road trip. So I looked down at my odometer to see that it read more than 25,000 miles, in fact I think it exceeded the 25,291 miles on the little colorform-type sticker on my windshield that was to remind me of my next service being due.

Fortunately, I had an appointment scheduled for this afternoon, after our fishing adventure. Imagine my surprise as I looked down at my odometer on the way to the Saturn dealership, and it read 694,978.

W-O-W.

For a moment, I thought we must have travelled through a worm-hole (lame pun attempt that might vaguely link back to that earlier bait story), and made really great time at that. Talk about gas mileage!

But then, annoyance set it. Is this thing really broke? Well, crap! I'm about to go on a road trip! No guy can go on a road trip without being able to brag about just how many miles had been traveled on the trip, whether it be to settle the fighting kids down ("we may have driven a thousand miles, but don't think I won't turn this car around"), or to negotiate a room from that hotel that is full because of a bird convention (don't laugh, this really happened to me... "look, I've driven nine hundred miles and I'm REALLY tired with two cranky kids in the back seat and nothing ahead of me but desert, you really don't have ANY rooms left?" Well, I got a room... they had a couple suites left).

Well, at the Saturn dealership (which we got stuck at for two hours) they informed me that a computer module had died and was replaced, and that though they could get an approximate mileage reading from a backup unit, it probably wouldn't be the exact correct mileage pre-computer breakdown.

Holy smokes, I thought. This is one of those few times that a good old fashion analog instrument would have out-performed it's digital counterpart. That's difficult for me to say, being the digital junkie that I am. Now I feel like my odometer is forever tainted. How can I possibly sign the odometer certification in good conscience when I trade-in this vehicle?