I’m pretty sure there’s no 12-step program for folks addicted to “New Car Smell.” But if they ever start one I’ll probably sign up.

Some years back, mostly to satisfy my own curiosity, I dug out my pocket calculator and began crunching numbers. A couple of minutes later I had arrived at a ballpark estimate of the total number of miles I’d driven in the previous four-plus decades.

The exact figure isn’t particularly important (hint: I quit when I’d hit a million miles), but it tends to confirm something I’ve long suspected. With the exception of professional truckers, peripatetic politicians and Red Bull-swilling, over-the-road sales reps, few drivers ever approach the astronomically high annual mileage figures routinely generated by those of us who spend our lives “on the road” chasing down that elusive “next gig.”

As any veteran road warrior will tell you, if you plan on logging that kind of mileage, year after year in a maze of twisty two-lane back roads bisected by the occasional arrow-straight slab of interstate, certain experiences are unavoidable.

It’s only a matter of time before you run into (sometimes quite literally) one of several common yet somehow unexpected road hazards.

At the top of my personal Top Ten List, I’d probably go with the sentimental favorite, the classic flat tire, bane of the traveling public since the days of the “horseless carriage.”

Next in no particular order I offer you a “soft shoulder smorgasbord” of boiled radiator hoses, blown fuses, cracked distributer caps, fried wheel bearings, bad gas, worn fan belts, dead batteries and last but not least, the inevitable deer collision!

I tend to view such periodic impediments to forward motion philosophically. Frustrating? You bet. But rarely are they life threatening. I just think of them as my annual membership dues for The Over-The-Road Club. Plus, strange as it may seem, every now and then, one of these dark, vehicular storm clouds actually comes with a silver lining.

One particular incident happened in the late ’70s. I was driving to a recording session in Lewiston in my trusty, rusty 1972 AMC Hornet wagon (the one with the “Gucci Leather Interior” which, my younger brother once pointed out, looked exactly like it was sewn together from old bowling shoes). Suddenly the car commenced shuddering violently, while an alarming, high-pitched keening wail sounded.

Wrestling the Hornet to the gravel shoulder, I shut off the engine, leapt out, opened the hood and was nearly bowled over by a solid wall of bitter acrid smoke exploding from the engine bay.

An hour later, as I was riding “shotgun” in the tow truck, the driver explained that, in the time it had taken me to pull over and turn the car off, a seized water pump had reduced my dependable six-cylinder engine to a useless lump of smoldering metal. The silver lining came when the studio owner picked me up, drove me to the studio and parked his shiny new Lincoln right next to a rusty, powder blue AMC wagon with a “For Sale” sign taped to the windshield.

Except for the color that car was a dead ringer for the one I’d just ditched. A deal was struck. When the recording session ended, I drove home in a faded blue version of the same vehicle I’d driven off in twelve hours earlier. I’m not sure whether anybody besides me even noticed the switch.

I found myself with plenty of time to reflect on this and many other colorful roadside adventures recently. It was 11:30 on a Friday night and I was sitting in the breakdown lane, three and a half miles from nowhere, awaiting the arrival of yet another tow truck.

I’d been driving home from a gig in my old Mercedes when a familiar thumping sound arose from my rear wheel well. Even at night a flat wasn’t a huge problem. After all I had a spare, a jack and a lug ... “Hey, where’s my #$@*&^&% lug wrench?!

Everything turned OK. It was just embarrassing to admit to the tow truck driver that with my kids no longer living at home I have only myself to blame for the missing wrench. The next day, on my way to have the tire replaced, I bought a brand new four-way lug wrench. Mission accomplished! Or so I thought.

I suppose I should be grateful to my ace mechanic Lorenzo for at least waiting until after he’d mounted and balanced the new tire before pointing out that none of the four ends of my new lug wrench actually fit the Mercedes’ bolts.

Conclusion? The used Mercedes lug wrench Larry included was free. My Triple A membership? Priceless!