baboom baboom baboom BRAAAAWWWP! BRAAAAWWWWP! BRAAAWWWWW!

THAT is what my truck sounds like, right now as I type this, as Jethro is going down the road to work! It's not that there's no muffler on the truck. There's a muffler on the truck. See, there it is, right there, on the truck!

So, remember that play I auditioned for, three months ago, and didn't get the part, but I helped out with a little bit of set painting? Well, I sent my kids over to my neighbour's house and headed off across town to see the play. But, just three blocks away from my house, as I stepped into it to get up the hill to the intersection, this is what I heard:

rip
clunk
scrape
roar

and all that onomatopeia can only mean one thing, one thing that has happened to me many times before, because I drive vehicles with history on them...it's the sound of an escapee muffler!

Yeehaw! I steered the monster off into the next parking lot, where a nice clean nice townie couple were walking out of the Shopper's Drug Mart and called out to me over the rumble: "There's something broken hanging out of the bottom of your truck! There are sparks coming out of it!"

I smiled and waved. They had the look of people who've never seen a muffler in their lives.

Sure enough, there it was. Completely unattached and lookin for love. The only thing holding it there was the rear axle, the curve of the tailpipe pushing it along under the truck.

Meanwhile, a thin dude with long grey hair and a beard had wandered over, just as I was hanging onto the box for leverage so I could kick the end of the tailpipe hard enough to get it unhooked from the axle. He scrambled under the box on the other side and pulled the decrepit muffler-tailpipe combo out.

I was a little concerned about the guy's hands but it turns out, of course, that it wasn't burning hot at all. Why would it be? There probably hadn't been any exhaust going through it for weeks! I knew that thing was gonna go. It's been getting louder, and louder...so I thanked the guy, gave him a toonie for bus fair (that's a $2 coin for my non-canuck friends) and told him to chuck it in the back there. Another advantage of driving a pickup: you can carry away all the bits that fall off of it. Just throw it in the back with all the other s**t that your husband throws back there every time he drives it.

Then away I went, dressed in my good jeans and my Johnny hoodie and my eye shadow and lipstick, in my BRAND NEW HOT ROD!!!

All the way across town I FELT THE RUMBLE when I STEPPED ON IT! What a hell of a racket. And I thought to myself, F**K IT, chin up! Dig me and my NASCAR truck!

So the play was excellent, I laughed all the way through it and got teary eyed at the end, but this is MY blog and I wasn't in the play so blah blah blah. Then I got in my badass truck and HAMMERED it all the way home! Ha ha ha!

There's something about driving a truck with a V8 and no exhaust that makes you wanna use the F word a lot. Just feels so right.

I fully intended to drive it like that for awhile. I figured if I got hauled over I could tell the nice officer that it just fell off. See? There it is, right there in the back! But I have been struggling with the Impending Doom lately, so this morning I leaned on the bedroom doorframe and asked Jethro, "Exactly how illegal is it to drive with no muffler?"

Right now as I type this, he's probably dropping it off at the mechanic-buddy next to the studio. He reckoned since we can afford to fix it today, and might not be able to in a few days (such is the erratic nature of our business) that he better take it to work today. I know that truth! He just wanted to drive the loud truck!

I moved the Jetta out of the driveway so he could get the truck out. I turned down the radio and opened the window so I could hear him roar it down the nice clean nice suburban street. Then I ran into the house and called him to tell him. He picked up the phone laughing.

JETHRO: WOO HOO! This is f**king sweet! Check this out. I'm at the red light. Okay.

ME: (laughing)

JETHRO: 'kay, the other light's red now... (BRAAAAWWWWWWW) (Jethro laughing maniacally) I just drove past some f**kin guy with his window open! Ha ha ha ha! I f**kin love this!

ME: You just took the truck because you wanted to listen to it all the way down the highway! I know you!

JETHRO: Okay, wait, I'm at the last stoplight before I get out of town. Okay, here! (BRAAAAAWWWWWRRR)

ME: (giggling stupidly) You know what the best part is? It's totally gutless without the muffler!

JETHRO: I know! It's totally f**kin gutless! I gotta f**kin stomp it just to make it go! But it sounds like a f**kin MONSTER!

ME: You're gonna burn through a whole tank of gas just getting down the highway! You know what, I f**kin wish we could afford to put duals on it.

JETHRO: Oh that's expensive. Two catalytics, two mufflers...

ME: I know, and basically useless. But I'd sound so f**kin bitchin.

JETHRO: Yeah! It'd sound like THIS (RRRRAAAAAAWWWWWRRRRR) I had to do it! I'm goin up a hill! Whooo! Oh, gotta go, hitting the cellular deadzone! (RAAAAWWWWRRRR) Bye!


Only enough time passes for him to get out of the deadzone valley full of trees and the phone rings again. I pick it up and...

JETHRO: Okay one more. (the laughs maniacally again, and I do mean like a maniac) I'm gettin on the highway! Lizzen, lizzen---(RAAAAWWWWWWRRRR) Yee heee heeee! I f**kin LOVE this! You know those flags behind the airplanes? I should have one of those behind the truck that says, "I'm an asshole!"

ME: (laughing too hard to speak)

JETHRO: Whoo, this feels good. F**kin good! Every now and then ya gotta drive a pickup truck with nothing after the f**kin catalytic man, cuz you can pretend you're all nice and suburban and all, but ya gotta remind yourself that deep down you're really still just a f**kin Redneck! WHOOOOO!