They Heard Me Coming a Mile Away
Stuff I hate, Travel June 23rd, 2012
Dear Heavenly Father,
We thank You today for getting Kathy safely to the muffler repair shop, following what sounded like cannon fire coming out the back of her car as she drove on a busy highway.
We thank You for giving her the ability to train one eye on the road in front and the other in back, just in case the muffler decided to divorce itself from her car right then and there.
We thank You for giving her steadiness under pressure the entire seven miles to the shop, four-ways on, driving only 15mph and annoying the hell out of everyone who followed her.
She made it there without so much as a stink eye.
We thank You for roads not too bumpy, places to pull over to let others pass, and for a suspension that she later learned kept the whole broken pipe assembly from dropping out.
We thank You for allowing Kathy to release her Kung Fu grip from the steering wheel upon arrival at the shop, and for her dear sister who picked her up so she didn’t have to waste money on cab fare getting home.
Speaking of money……
We do not thank You for the $600 bill, but all things considered, at least Kathy’s not shopping for a new car tomorrow.
Amen.
Stumble it!
June 23rd, 2012 at 8:35 pm
Do we need to fund raise a new steering wheel? Or are you enjoying the diy ergonomics?
June 23rd, 2012 at 11:53 pm
Agree we thank o you lord 😉 for being able to get into the driveway despite the traffic. But $600! Nightmare city!
June 23rd, 2012 at 11:57 pm
Yeah, I think Pep Boys has a 600 dollar flat fee regardless of what service they’re performing. Wiper blades, brake job, installing a hyperdrive . . . whatever.
Chris@Knucklehead´s last blog post ..We’ve Lost a Welterweight Boxer
June 24th, 2012 at 6:38 am
Now that’s what I call an attitude of gratitude . . . even the $600 beats what a new car would cost.
Karen and Gerard´s last blog post .."Never Tell" by Alafair Burke
June 24th, 2012 at 7:12 am
Oh a Muffler going out… the noise is what I hate the more than being afraid of the car falling apart.
I am glad you were safe though it must have been quite an ordeal !
June 24th, 2012 at 9:39 am
Did you count down every single mile there? That’s what my Mommeh does.. “one more mile to go, I’m almost there!”
Daisy the Curly Cat´s last blog post ..Minnie Me!
June 24th, 2012 at 9:46 am
We are happy you made it safely. We would not want you to to have been hurt
Pricilla – Famous SpokesGoat´s last blog post ..We Are Sad
June 24th, 2012 at 12:47 pm
Oh no, no cop outs. You have to take the rough with the smooth.
“Thank you for the $600 repair bill Lord, I know it could have been worse.”
June 24th, 2012 at 1:59 pm
Okay, I’m sorry this happened to you – but I am laughing HYSTERICALLY over this!
meleah rebeccah´s last blog post ..How New Bedding Changed One Woman’s Life
June 24th, 2012 at 2:17 pm
Daughterbonnie — Har. You know what’s weird? While driving with my Kung Fu grip, I was also slunk (is that a word?) down in my seat. I looked like an old lady driving in Florida. It was so embarrassing to be driving that slow and loudly. I should have just hung a sign in my windows that said “Sorry!”
Eran — No kidding. But $600 was better than $20k for a new car.
Chris — I forgot to mention I let them throw in new front brakes ($200 of total) because they said I was unsafe to drive without new ones. I don’t know. Should I have believed them?
Karen — I was so grateful and sent a nice email to the company about how amazing the mechanics were and that I was in and out in under 3 hours. I’m also grateful the cracked piping didn’t affect the engine, which the mechanic said it might have, based on my description of the explosive sound it made. Counting my blessings today.
Jaffer — I tried driving slow enough that I didn’t sound like the drum section of a marching band. Embarrassing!
Daisy the Curly Cat — Yes, and a lot of “Oh please oh please oh please oh please muffler don’t fall off and hit a car behind me!” It rattled the whole way and I had no idea until later that it couldn’t have fallen off. Every time I hit even the slightest bump and I heard the vibrations, I cringed and sweated just a little more. Ugh.
Pricilla — Thank you! Me too! Scary stuff!
Merrill Guice — Right you are!
Meleah Rebeccah — And so now you know why I drove my husband’s car when we met in Philly. I just never felt like my car was very long-distance road-worthy the last couple years.
June 24th, 2012 at 5:35 pm
We headed off to an out-of-town wedding a few weeks ago, confident in our newly acquired brakes, battery, and other assorted car parts too boring to mention. We got about 30 minutes from our house and left our brakes at O’Hare airport–a very congested and not-so-easy to find an exit sorta place.
Yeah, we had the death-grip ride from hell to try to get back home. I kept telling Joe quietly, yet firmly, to PLEASE not tailgate the guy in front of us because we have no brakes–something I think he was forgetting in spite of the giant THUMP, THUMP, THUMP every time he tapped the pedal.
I was terrified. Here we were with my entire family in a death trap, 30 minutes from home.
But, Whew! We made it, safely. Repacked all of our weekend bags, wedding gear, and crabby selves into Joe’s teeny tiny backseat and started out again.
Yeah, I’m still recovering from that trip. I mean it when I say that I know how you felt.
Whew! Glad you got there safely. And so is the guy who was riding behind you hoping that damn thing wasn’t gonna let loose anytime soon.
lin´s last blog post ..No Day but Today
June 24th, 2012 at 9:43 pm
OMG, Kathy, I am sorry for laughing because I know how horrible this must have been, but this last part made me HOWL…
“Speaking of money……
We do not thank You for the $600 bill, but all things considered, at least Kathy’s not shopping for a new car tomorrow.”
Bwhahhahahahahaha!
LOVE the way you wrote this post! And I’m so happy to hear you got to where you needed to get without any harm. This is one of the reasons why I am so happy to NOT need a car anymore. I use to freak out every time something needed replacing because I knew it would cost a small fortune.
X
Ron´s last blog post ..Leaving On A Jet Plane
June 25th, 2012 at 5:39 am
Awh. Sorry about your car, I hate car repairs and you might want to go thank Him for the $600 bill. I’m sure He was just about to drop a pile of money out of the sky to help pay for it.
June 25th, 2012 at 10:47 am
The correct pose for driving without a muffler is the left elbow out the window, right hand at top of steering wheel, body in the slot between the steering wheel and the driver’s door.
Picture: I’m cool, and I drive a cool car. I don’t need a muffler. Hear the power of my engine?
June 25th, 2012 at 5:05 pm
Lin — OMG!!! That sounds WAY worse than my experience, and Joe? Did you have an actual death wish, or what? The whole time I was driving like that, I kept thinking how irresponsible I was by continuing to drive the car. Which is why I kept pulling over to let others by me. I was trying to calculate how much I could get sued for dropping a muffler in their path. I never want to go through that again and I hope you never do either. Holy hell, woman.
Ron — I sort of wish I didn’t have a car, but as yet, we haven’t figured out how to live our lives without two. Could probably only do if if one of us didn’t have a job, since we start at different times of the day and our employers are not close together. I’m jealous of you. And like I told Meleah, how great was it that this didn’t happen the day I drove to Conshohocken with a droopy muffler?!
V — See, now I was looking at it all wrong. Still, I haven’t won the lottery since….
Dane Zeller — Hilarious! Yes, you’ve painted the perfect picture. We have plenty of people around here who would love to have sounded as loud as I did and been proud of it!
June 30th, 2012 at 7:46 am
So glad you’re fine Kathy. Must admit it was quite brave of you to have driven that way for seven miles. $600 would not hurt so much after all this.
Samaira Jonathon´s last blog post ..Bluehost Coupon
June 30th, 2012 at 11:49 pm
Had an S-10 Blazer once. The muffler fell off and I promptly ran it over.
J. Bear Savo´s last blog post ..Seven Side Effects of Being an Auctioneer
July 1st, 2012 at 2:20 pm
So glad that you got it fixed and hopefully fixed correctly. I’ve had a few bad experiences with cars, but unfortunately the worse experiences were driving away from the repair place instead of getting there.
Sharon
July 1st, 2012 at 3:50 pm
God is good but expensive. At least, he saved you the cost of buying a new car.
Lauren´s last blog post ..It could have been worse if there were 31
July 6th, 2012 at 9:17 am
In Phoenix where I live, they pay $600 to MAKE cars sound like this……..same planet, different worlds.