The Dangling Muffler Escapade

Just before lunch today, I heard a terrible racket coming down the street.  The noise stopped in our driveway causing me to dash to the window.  My husband had pulled into the drive with the muffler dragging below his car.  The racket was the muffler scraping the pavement all the way up the street.  He hurried in, grabbed the keys to my car and hurried out so as not to miss his noon Rotary meeting.

For some inexplicable reason, as I pondered the vehicle in the driveway, I saw it as an irresistible challenge.  I have no idea what makes me do things like this, especially since my husband didn’t expect me to take care of it.  But, I crouched down next to the car and tried to pull the muffler off…no luck.  I then decided that perhaps I could wire it up off the pavement, so that the only noise on the way to the muffler shop would be the unmuffled engine noise.  I figured at least the rattle and scrape sound could be eliminated.  A coat hanger, bungee cord and 30 minutes later, I had the muffler ever so slightly above the ground.  

I went in the house, washed off the dirt acquired from my under-the-car activity, made myself a PBJ sandwich, and headed for the muffler shop.  There was a bit of metal-on-the-pavement sound along with the rumble of free exhaust, but not nearly as loud as earlier.  I thought my solution had worked, until I hit a bump.  A thud and a look in the rear view mirror revealed the muffler was now detached and in the middle of the street behind me. The bungee cord and coat hanger were still hooked to the under-carriage of the car.   I pulled over and used a blanket from the car to protect my hands while picking up the now hot muffler.

The rest of the trip to the garage was uneventful, except for strange looks from other motorists and pedestrians.  The manager at the muffler shop said I shouldn’t have bothered to pick up the muffler.  He said that people troll the city picking up scrap metal, and it would have probably been picked up before I even got to the shop.  I told him that I was just trying to tidy up after myself.

I sat in the waiting area, ate my PBJ and looked at old magazines.   When my husband got home, he called my cell phone wondering where his car was.

The muffler is now fixed…it was actually under a life-time warranty.  Of course, the labor, the bracket and the pipes on either side of the muffler weren’t on warranty.  Funny how that works.  A life-time guarantee plus $200 will get your muffler fixed.

I’m still trying to figure out why I saw that dangling muffler as a challenge.  If I could answer that question, it might explain some other curious things about my life too.