Muffled Screams
by Kerry Joyce
Illustration by G. Blue
This is Lancelot Link, high priced consumer reporter for Lollipop Magazine. Today we are leaving our 1996 Volvo 780 at home in the garage of our well appointed four bedroom home in an exclusive suburban bedroom community, and traveling over to Meineke in yucky old Somerville, where rumor has it “you’re not going to pay a lot for this muffler because you’re going to be bound, gagged, and raped by something bigger than George Foreman, for a new catalytic converter.”
Of course, Lollipop‘s high priced consumer reporter doesn’t have a car that needs a muffler, and even if Lollipop‘s high priced consumer reporter did have such a vehicle, he or she would never take it to Meineke, but would take it instead to the Volvo dealer where we bought it. So we borrowed the car belonging to our hapless distribution guy, a real putz who’s puttering his way through life in a 1990 Hyundai that was about as muffled as Courtney Love’s mouth. Then we removed our hapless distribution guy’s perfectly valid inspection sticker and replaced it with an old one we bought from this coke-head whose four wheeled junk heap has a bumper sticker that says: “My Other Car is Up My Nose.” (Just say no children.)
Next we called up Meineke and were informed that the price of a muffler was Ka-Ching: $185.00 American, plus tax. Then we strode into the Meineke and were told that the price for a new muffler would be Ka-Ching: $185.00, plus tax. Damn! Had we somehow blown our cover? Should we have gone with just two day’s growth of beard instead of the four? Were the jeans perhaps a bit too tattered? Were the 9 shots of Jack Daniels before noon overdoing our disguise perhaps? We sat in the comfortable lounge, contemplated the empty coffee pot, and resisted the tempation to shove the latest issue of Rolling Stone (they’ll never get a cent from us) under our coat.
Then we were called out of the comfortable waiting room:
“Sir, can you follow me into the Employees Only area where your car is now perched 8 feet up in the air and where we, the service technicians of Meineke Discount Muffler, have the distinct psychological advantage, as well as your car over you at this point.
A grinning Federale was pointing up under my hood and giggling maniacly. “He says your car has two rusted bolts that need to be replaced. That’s going to be an extra $2.50 per bolt plus ten dollars each, for labor.”
They were chiseling all right, but only for a crummy $25.00. Your intrepid consumer reporter can’t file a story for a sawbuck plus a measly fin. This was worse than not getting chiselled at all. We decided to take several more shots of Jack Daniels in the well maintained restroom facilitys, while leaving an odious stripe on their porcelain bowl.
We then staggered on over to McDonald’s to determine for a future story perhaps, Why, if the cute girl behind the counter really was under 18, she wasn’t in school, instead of snapping gum and ringing in fries at 1pm on a weekday. No luck. No phone number either.
Back to Meineke. We are motioned again under the car. Now the lying duck fucker tries to convince your high priced consumer reporter that we need a new catalytic converter (Pay Dirt!) for $191.00, plus tax. “If you don’t get one you’ll never pass inspection, you’ll flunk the emissions test for sure. He tapped on the catalytic converter, which sounded like it had broken glass in it.
An ominous sound, but not proof of a malfunctioing catalytic converter, we knew. “Sorry we didn’t find out that your $600 car was going to need $400 and not just $200 worth of work to pass inspection, until $200 worth of work was already done on your Korean shit box which is still perched eight feet up in the air, and I still have the key, by the way. But if you act now, we’ll forget about that additional $25.00 bolt job.”
But your intrepid consumer reporter had had an emissions test that very day and had passed with flying colors. We’d cleverly removed the exhaust pipe, which only took a second because it was completely rusted through anyhow, to make the car even more pathetic before heading on over to Meineke.
“If you don’t have the money, you can apply for a Meineke credit card,” the Meineke Lying Duck Fucker technician said. Now, your intrepid high priced consumer reporter, who looks nothing whatever like a duck by the way, has never bounced a check or missed a payment in our lives. But we weren’t about to bite. Hell, we had the extra two hundred cash right there in our pocket, and we only pretended to be having a nervous break down, and exited, only pretended that our tail was between our legs, and we only pretended to be wishing that maybe we should have forgotten about being an intrepid consumer reporter and kept that job telemarketing for Sprint, and then only pretended to be jerked around by a snot-nosed little intern for a high priced consumer reporter at one of the big local TV stations, who only pretended to take our telephone number down.
But even if the big local TV stations aren’t returning our calls, all you lucky Lollipop readers now know to stay the hell away from Meineke, and to think twice before buying a catalytic converter from anybody. And that will be: Ka-Ching: $875 American, Mr. Lollipop publisher.
