Aug 4, 2020 3 min read

My daughter called me early last Saturday.

“Something fell off of my car on the way to babysit,” she said. “Can you come pick me up?”

I crawled out of bed, slipped on some Crocs, and headed out the door. Yes, in my pajamas.

I got into my car and drove to the mall, where she had, fortunately, been able to pull over safely.

When I got out, she told me she just thought her exhaust had broken. That was clear to me, because I could see part of the tailpipe was dragging on the ground.

This is only somewhat amusing because her first car had a similar problem. That exhaust had cracked before the muffler and her car was so loud. She would wait to start her car after school until most everyone else had left so that there were fewer people there to hear it. She asked me to trade vehicles with her on a few occasions when she was embarrassed to take hers. I refused, as it was not unsafe to drive, just uncomfortable for her social status. I reminded her that I, too, had driven a car with issues at her age and that one day this would be a favorite story for her to tell.

She saved up the money to get that exhaust fixed, and then two short days after picking it up from the garage, she rolled the car and totaled it. The only thing that remained unscathed after the accident was the exhaust system. That brand new, quite pricey, exhaust system shone like a diamond among the rubble of the remaining car.

At any rate, when I arrived at the mall, I crawled underneath of it to assess the situation. The muffler had definitely broken, and a six-foot piece of it was dragging along the ground. Unfortunately, the six feet left trailing from the muffler was not a straight stick, but rather a curved and bendy length of metal.

In attempting to push it off the thing and over the other thing to take it out from underneath, it became wedged on her tire.

Next, we tried to shove it forward but that also failed. The morning walkers and joggers said “hello” as they passed, but they appeared uncertain about aiding two semi-crazed females in pajamas with wild hair who were lying in the middle of the parking lot laughing.

We were laughing because no matter which direction we tugged, the tailpipe wasn’t coming out. After another few minutes, during which we bent the pipe back and forth until an extra foot of it broke off, we were finally able to remove it from underneath of the car.

We threw the pieces in the back hatch and fired up the engine. Fortunately, where the break happened was behind the muffler, so the car is not loud. She will be able to drive it for quite some time if needs be without a safety – or embarrassment – issue.