The Broken Jeep

Today nothing new happened, so here's what happened yesterday:  my Jeep broke.  Basically my muffler fell off. I was driving across the parking lot at St. Jacobi when I noticed my car was uncharacteristically loud--we're talking really, really loud--so loud that the entire 8th grade class turned to see what kind of terrible was going on in the parking lot.  I know Jeeps are supposed to be loud, and I figured that my husband and bro-in-law would love this, but I knew something was wrong.  I pulled over in front of the church and bent down to see my muffler hanging there...not dragging, but hanging detached from some rusty broken pipe under my car.  Here's an artist's rendition of the view:

I knew I had to do something as I had to get to one more school and then back to Wisco.  Tying my hair back into a pony tail, I got down on my hands and knees and shoved the two pieces of pipe back together...which seemed to work.  I then grabbed my music stand out of the car and started pounding the back of the muffler, just to make sure it wouldn't fall off again.  Never mind that I was wearing a pencil skirt and heels today...never mind that I got muffler/rusty pipe crap all over my hands--I was on my way again.  The trip to the next school was uneventful and quick.  The trip back to Wisco via city streets, however, was stressful and slow.  The muffler fell off two more times, requiring me to pull over and attempt the music stand hitting, hot muffler touching, restrained pencil skirt motions to keep my muffler from dragging on the ground.  My entire body tensed at every bump in the road; my husband and brother-in-law couldn't help me this time; and the situation seemed pretty bleak.  In the end, however, I made it.

The next day, Ben made the muffler drag on the ground (after ignoring my suggestion to not go on the interstate) and then decided to remove the muffler completely and place it in the back of the car.  Apparently the subsequent muffler-less ride to Horicon was "awesomely loud".  I'm getting my dear Jeep home tomorrow.