the curse of the ... ?

[truepenny]

For comprehension of the following saga, it will help to know that mirrorthaw and I have three cars: the elderly psychotic Swedish car, otherwise known as a 1997 Saab 9000 Turbo, the truck, and the Zipzop, a Miata convertible which I do not drive because I can't drive stick. (That's not quite true. I can drive stick, technically, but I'm always terrified that I'm going to rip the transmission out of the car, so I drive stick Very Badly.)

Mostly, I drive the elderly psychotic Swedish car because I am very fond of it.

Saturday night I am driving home from WisCon at 11 p.m. when suddenly the exhaust becomes approximately nineteen times louder. A few miles later, I realize I can hear a new and ominous sound, which I have the horrible suspicion is the tail pipe dragging against the surface of the road.

Driving home from WisCon is a wee bit of a hike for me, and much of it is through relatively unpopulated areas. Also, I read In Cold Blood at a particularly impressionable point in my adolescence. I keep driving until I can find a well-lit, though deserted, parking lot, and get out to look, and oh yes indeedy, that would be the tail pipe hanging down from the car like a dislocated limb.

I call mirrorthaw. We agree that since I've gotten most of the way, I might as well drive the car home and then take the truck the next day.

Please notice: this is 11 p.m. on a Saturday on a holiday weekend. The Saab has a magnificent sense of timing.

The truck is a truck. I can drive it, though not gracefully, and I hate parking the son of a bitch. But it's all good, and I drive in for the Sunday of WisCon.

Sunday night I am driving home from WisCon at 12:30 a.m. when suddenly there is a police car in my rearview mirror with all the lights going.

I am two fucking blocks from home.

The nice young policeman asks if I know why he's pulled me over. I have no idea and am smart enough not to try guessing. He tells me the left brake light is out, and also I used enough of the road in making the turn that put me in front of him that I think he suspects I might be drunk. Also when he asks for proof of insurance, the card I find is expired. Despite this, he decides I am not drunk and gives me a verbal warning.

I drive the last two blocks home and am possibly a little snippy with mirrorthaw--undeservedly, since it turns out there is a whole side quest here about the truck's left brake light which mirrorthaw is still questing.

So if you've been keeping score, you will notice that we are now down to the Zipzop, which I do not drive and which has a trunk that is quite possibly smaller than a breadbox. That's going to become relevant here in a moment.

Happily, mirrorthaw is willing to come in with me on Monday, since there's not all that much WisCon left in WisCon, so we drive in. I have agreed to help kate_nepveu by mailing the con_or_bust t-shirts back to her, since Memorial Day interfered with her original cunning plan to get them in the mail herself. There are rather more t-shirts than I was expecting. Which would not be a problem if I were driving the Saab! As I had fully intended to be!

...

We now know how many t-shirts it takes to fill the trunk of a Miata. Or we will if Kate counts them when they make it home to her. Because seriously. Snakes-in-a-can full of t-shirts. But mirrorthaw got the trunk to close.

Blessings upon the Zipzop, it did not do anything interesting either going or coming.

Monday evening, mirrorthaw took a stab at tying the tail pipe back up, but the undercarriage of the Saab defeated him. Which brings us to today. I have the Saab, the Miata, and two enormous boxes of t-shirts that I really want to get in the mail. I called a local repair shop. They can't get me in until tomorrow, and the guy said dubiously, "A Saab? Well, I can look at it." I called the Saab place. They allowed as how a person might want this issue resolved and said they'd try to work me in during the afternoon. We also agreed that driving the car with the tail pipe dragging on the ground was contraindicated.

I called my acupuncturist and canceled the appointment I'd had for this afternoon.

Then I called AAA, wondering if the tow-truck guy would be persuadable to stop by a post office, and if he'd let me bring two enormous boxes of t-shirts with me in the cab of his truck. Happily, I didn't have to try that charisma roll, because the awesome tattooed tow-truck guy, equipped with a jack, a coat hanger, and a lot of experience in these matters, tied the tail pipe back to the car in such a way that it did not, in fact, fall off again as I drove it to the Saab place.

(Meanwhile, mirrorthaw is working on that side quest about the truck's left brake light.)

Shaking a defiant fist at the perversity of inanimate objects, especially cars, I stopped at the post office on the way to the Saab place and got the t-shirts in the mail.

I don't know how many of you have driven cars with mufflerfail, but it's really rather like driving a small annoyed dragon. Perhaps not surprisingly, the faster you drive, the less annoyed the dragon becomes. The elderly psychotic Swedish car's new name is Lindorm.

It is the muffler, the Saab place is ordering the part and gave me a loaner Saab 9-3 (I find it kind of cute how hard the 9-3's dashboard is trying to look like a airplane cockpit), and I have found the receipt from the last time we had the muffler replaced, in 2006, which means that most magical of all words, warranty, is relevant.

But thank goodness WisCon ended before I ran out of cars.

Comments

[kate_nepveu]

*laughing yet appalled*

Oh no! I was already feeling bad that we hadn't reduced the number of T-shirts further, for both our sakes, but this just adds to it. I'm so sorry, and thank you again.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

There were a couple of exciting moments, but really, overall, not a problem. I was glad to help.

[kate_nepveu]

Oh, and those were the boxes they were shipped to the con in, which held 120, so unless the boxes were significantly squished in the process, that may be the relevant volume.

[erik]

Warranty is an especially important word for working with Saabs, in my experience. Because apparently the parts that fit Saabs are in fact made of concentrated money. And working on one will make you curse all Swedish engineers until you realize that they've already been cursed and that's why they are compelled to design things...like...that.

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

Amanda the Big Red Truck's muffler fell off somewhere around, oh, Jamestown-ish, on the way up to Madison with a trailer full of furniture. Since one of the supports that held up the tailpipe (which was as long as the entire damn truck bed, so, about 8 feet) had ALSO decided to give way, and it was the one closer to the muffler, this meant that it was now dragging in a way where it was actually being pushed along the road. A stop at the nearest truck stop was indicated. I am similarly appalled yet glad you managed to make it home and to the Saab dealer without incident.

Oh, and while I am thinking about it, if the truck is a Chevy C/K 1500 of particular vintage (and possibly the GMC analogue as well), there was a manufacturer's recall having to do with a short in the wiring of the brake lights.

[sovay]

The elderly psychotic Swedish car's new name is Lindorm.

Yay.

[coffeeem.livejournal.com]

I'm feeling sorry for the poor underappreciated Zipzop...but then, I'm a Miata fan. (Not that I don't feel sorry for you, too, since I'm also a Sarah Monette fan!)

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Oh, I appreciate the Zipzop. I love riding in it. I just freak out at the thought of driving it.

[heresluck]

Ahahaha oh god. You may need to send the tow-truck guy a fruit basket or something. And I have to confess that the mental image of you two standing there playing 3-D Tetris with the t-shirts and the Zipzop trunk is amusing me greatly.

Also: clearly I should come back to WisCon next year, if only to keep you from having to drive.

[sillylilly-bird.livejournal.com]

Oh noes! Yes, it's good you didn't run out of cars! And YAY!! for the warranty:)

[libskrat]

"Zipzop" is a fantabulous name for a car. I just wanted to say that.

[scott-lynch.livejournal.com]

My first car was a 1977 Oldsmobile model 98... 21 years old when I got it. The tailpipe soon fell partly off and created a truly ungodly racket. I thought I was so clever at the time for using a half-roll of duct tape to stick it back in place, and kept driving on it for another half year. My standards for auto repair have gone up a little since then.

[delazan.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the most amusing story about car trouble I ever have read. I mean that sincerely. I'm ganking the quote: "I don't know how many of you have driven cars with mufflerfail, but it's really rather like driving a small annoyed dragon." I keep a file of quotes, so don't be surprised if someday I quote you at the end of a blog entry.

Good luck with everything. You deserve good luck,
-Lori

[girlpunksamurai.livejournal.com]

*wince*

Ouch, I know how that feels. My own car has gone kaput in some inconvenient places. Like when my brakes went in the middle of the road. Or when the car wouldn't start in the supermarket parking lot (needed new starter). Those are just the most recent experiences. I have older traumas. I;m actually going to have to save up for a car, though it's so damn expensive.

...Guess I should scratch off a Saab as a possible future car O.o

[carbonel]

Someone must have put an all-purpose curse on cars attending Wiscon.

The transmission indicated that it wished to be replaced in my new (to me) car on Thursday before Wiscon, to the tune of $2300. The loaner car that the garage graciously lent me was tiny, but the four of us managed to shoehorn into it.

When we stopped for lunch on the way back, it turned out I'd left the lights on. It also turned out that the battery was apparently on its last legs, because it wouldn't start. Amazingly, the guy AAA arranged to show up did so about 10 minutes after the call completed, and we were on the road about half an hour after the original intimation of disaster. I was very glad to have confirmation that it was merely a dead battery, because it could have been so much worse.

And today I have my original car back, but I don't have the security code for the car stereo (used car, y'know), so it's currently dead, and will have to go back to the shop to be pulled out so the Honda people can provide the code.

[radiotelescope.livejournal.com]

For those of you who consider the idea of tying up a dragging tailpipe, I offer a warning story:

Pulling into my driveway in the antiquated Toyota (now of memory long faded, but it was antiquated even then), my well-tied-up tailpipe decided to surprise me by cutting loose its *front* end. That is, in front of the muffler. Rather like pixel39's story, I guess -- except that instead of being pushed along the driveway, it decided to dig in and jack up the back end of my car.

Wasn't that a surprise. If I had been moving at highway speed (as opposed to driveway speed), it would have been a *dramatic* surprise. With circles and arrows and quite possibly a liberated rear bumper sailing lazily overhead.

Disclaimer: this is a cautionary tale, and I won't be offended if consider it as first-hand folklore. Little Red Riding Muffler. Give it twenty years and the muffler will probably represent menstruation.

Yes, coat hangers

[muneraven.livejournal.com]

When I was in high school the tailpipe on a friend's car fell down like that. I found a wire coat hanger in her car and wired it up so she could get it home. I am not handy AT ALL and I have no idea how I knew to do such a thing.

I assume I was an awesomely tattooed tow truck driver in a previous life.

[grass-angel.livejournal.com]

I just like the fact you've named a car Lindorm. *is a dragon nerd*

[pameladean]

Now that it has its right name, perhaps the Swedish car will be less psychotic.

Well, or not.

I had no idea that such travails lay behind your calm demeanor. I'm glad you had enough cars.

P.