Margaritaville and a rusty muffler

Now most of you who know me, know that I do not have lady luck on my side. I am usually on the wrong side of luck and this past weekend was no different.

So like most white Americans, my dad LOVES Jimmy Buffet. I mean, how can you not? Margaritaville? Cheeseburger in Paradise? Fins? They are classics. And on those songs, Mr. Buffet has created a culture unlike anything I have ever seen. And A LOT of money.

My dad's dream has also been to go to a Jimmy Buffet concert. It's sort of like Richie Molinaro, it is more like an event. A MUCH bigger event. So as a thank you for spending months of his life working on our house, I picked up two tickets for he and I to go see Jimmy Buffet this past weekend.

We packed up our supplies - suncreen, Hawaiian shirts, and a cooler FULL of beverages and headed to Citizens Bank Park - yes the place where the Phillies play. Jimmy was performing in center field - our seats were at second base.

We got down to the sports complex to try and meet up with Steve and Val and a few other people. While we were sitting in a long line of traffic among 30,000 drinking, partying Parrotheads, we heard a very loud thud and something that sounded like one of those ghetto cars with no muffler. I originally looked around for the punk with the loud car. Then I hit the gas on my car and realized who the punk was. Combined with the LOUD exhaust coming out from under my little Civic was a painful grinding sound. That would have been my muffler which has just fallen off.

About the same time, we discovered that our friends were about a mile away in the opposite direction in another parking lot. So we made the trek across four lanes of traffic, through one illegal u-turn and past the previously mentioned 30,000 Buffet fans. We obnoxiously cruised, grinding muffler in tow, around the parking lot which was closed off at every entrance only to finally find the ONE entrance that wasn't locked. However, the parking attendant refused to let us in. I couldn't really blame him. We were a Hawaiian-shirt-wearing fire ball waiting to happen.

So we made the same trek around the same parking area, grinding and bellowing the whole way back to the SAME entrance. This time, we snuck into a line (as much as we could sneak) that was going in to the lot (there was a Rush concert right next door - I guess my car made us look more like a Rush fan than a Buffet fan) and we got in no problem.

Once we parked, and after a few beers and a cheeseburger.....we rigged up a makeshift support of string that kept the pipe off the ground by about 3 inches. From that point, we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. We had a blast tailgating. Two minutes before the concert, the heavens opened and we got SOAKED but didn't really care. It was all part of the experience. Jimmy was great. There was even a ten minute fireworks show after he was done.

Then the moment of truth. We got in the car and headed home. Somewhere around 60 miles an hour (which on I-95 is the equivalent of sitting still) the sound wasn't too offensive. However, about 10 miles down the road, we heard a thump and an all too familiar grinding sound. The string had broke. So we pulled off on the shoulder and tried to figure out a way to hold up the muffler. We even tried to cut our losses and rip off the muffler but to no avail. So Dad cut the string and wrapped it around the pipe. He then pulled on it and jumped into the car and closed the door and yelled "Go!" - like we had just robbed a bank. I punched it and we were (loudly) back on the highway.

Until another 10 miles or so when we heard that same familiar thump and grinding sound. By this point I was ready to just blow up the car and walk home. So once again we pulled over. And once again, there we were, in our Hawaiian shirts and leighs, lying under our car. I was absolutely convinced that this was how my life would end. Someone would see a couple of Parrotheads lying on the side of the road, get to close and that would be it.

However, it wasn't. With a look of sheer determination, I watched my dad whip off his belt and wrap it around the rusted pipe. He once again jumped in the car, closed the door and instructed me to go. Which I did.

We spent the first several minutes of Father's Day 2008 in silence, in a bellowing car, holding a rusted muffler with a now destroyed leather belt. Happy Father's Day.

Needless to say, it was a concert experience that I will not soon forget. Dad, I hope you had fun. Wanna go next year? If so, let's take your car.