The funny part was when the muffler fell off somewhere on I-70 in Indiana during a snow storm. It was one of those snow storms where everything is grey–the ground, the sky, the air. I was driving, because, as it would turn out, everything bad happened while I was driving. And it was funny because crawling under your car in a slush puddle on the side of a major interstate is one of two things and funny is preferable. To be fair, Macky was doing the crawling and I was playing the ever important and somewhat less wet roll of photographer. (Because we live in a digital age and something about posting about your suffering on facebook makes everything better.)

But mufflers are technically a non-essential element so we shoved it in the trash bag that used to hold our sandwiches and continued on our way, a little bit oilier and a lot bit wetter. Admittedly, having a muffler is nice for long drives, especially if you have intentions of talking to your driving partner, but we compensated by screaming and turning up the stereo until the speakers crackled in complaint. And by the time we hit Missouri, six or seven hours later, we were in great spirits and could barely even hear the roar anymore. A few hours outside of Kansas City (which, for all your New Englanders, is inexplicably located in Missouri not Kansas) there was a beautiful sunset, I was driving, and I was having a wonderful time. And then, with the sort of cosmic timing usually reserved for B-movies, the sun slid behind the horizon and the car sputtered to a halt. We rattled into a truck stop on Rt J, exit 186, just outside of Marshall, Missouri (which has a beautiful ring to it if you say it with a fake southern accent as we tend to in the retelling of this story–Marshaaaaall, Mizzzouriii.) Smoke poured out from under the hood and some sort of fluid formed ominous puddles beneath the car. It was not going to be a good night. We called for a tow truck and we waited. And we waited. We ate at Burger King. We instagrammed our plight. We contemplated going to the Adult Video Store across the street. Or perhaps the Lion’s Den Gentlemen’s club just down the road. We chickened out. We had contests to see who could stand on one foot for longer. Macky won.

The tow truck arrived, captained by a bearded man who didn’t talk much, thankfully, since he was already driving 80 mph, smoking with one hand, texting with the other, the steering wheel clenched between his elbows, and talking probably would have sent him over the edge. He did offer a few words of wisdom as the truck croaked to a start. “My boss says this truck has just got the hiccups,” he said and laughed. “But I’m like nawwwww there’s something wrong with it.”

He was supposed to take us to Kansas City but about halfway there, in Blue Springs, he shouted back at us, something about a Firestone at this exit that’s open on Sundays, and since we thought we’d be spending the holy day waiting in a hotel we jumped on the suggestion. (Nothing like breaking down in the Bible Belt on a Saturday evening…) The driver was pleased. He had four more calls after us and he was “swamped” and besides, he said as he unloaded the car, “I want to do good by ya’ll.”

We were touched by this sentiment. He dropped us off at a Quality Inn and we shook hands. We were tired and the situation had stopped being all that funny, so we convinced ourselves that surely-probably-maybe it’s something minor, something easy and cheap to fix.

I’m going to leave this story here for the moment, because I don’t know how much of this I can ask you, my dear reader, to take in one sitting. Anyway, to be continued… Teaser: part two will involve a Jeep Liberty and a Missouri farmer named Roy.