I Knew We Should Have Bought an American Car

I knew we should have bought an American car.  I do not mean an American brand.  I mean a car manufactured for an American audience.  I told Sean that I wanted to buy our car in the States.  It has nothing to do with Canada.  It's all about the speedometer.  In an American car the miles are on the top row of the arc of numbers, the kilometers on the bottom row.  Over the many years I have been driving I have gotten used to this set up.  Once in a while when I rented a car here it was confusing, so I knew what I wanted.

We bought a Canadian car.  At first it was no problem.  I very quickly got used to the kilometers being on the top row, and even picked on Sean the few times he looked at the odometer and thought miles instead of kilometers.

Two weeks ago I drove to New Jersey.  As we crossed into the US I found myself momentarily flustered as I glanced down at the speedometer to see my speed of 120.  Of course I wasn't driving 120 mph, but for a split second it threw me.  This happened a couple of times until I got used to the focus.  Unfortunately, unlike before when I easily went back and forth between kph and mph, when I returned to Canada I had trouble again.  It lasted over a week, even to our trip last weekend to Ottawa.

Ugh!  I knew we should have bought and American car.

Good night.