Mystery solved!

Warning: This is a highly embarrassing story about me and my cluelessness.

But at least now I know what was wrong with my scooter (aka The Angry Hornet).

So I went over to Lorenzo's place Monday night and was even more embarrassed than usual driving such a heinously LOUD yet relatively-teeny-tiny scooter (50cc for those in the know.)

It's like chatting on IM with some guy you really like, and typing with caps lock on for a really long time without knowing, and then finding out...

but much, MUCH worse.

Anyway, this was not helped one bit by the fact that I had driven this same scooter to Zeitgeist a week before, only to hear from my friend N the next day that everyone in the back barbecue area laughed their asses off as I drove away (because not only is the fucking thing LOUD as hell, but continues to be audible, and annoying, for miles and miles away...) SIGH!

So, anyway, I had to endure this extreme humiliation once again as I drove to Larry's for my diagnostic-checkup-slash-massage date. As I predicted, Larry was outside waiting for me because yes, you guessed it, he'd heard me coming. We rolled the scooter into his garage, and as he bent low to look underneath the exhaust, he said, "Aha. So do you want to know what the problem is?"

Gulp. "Okay."

"The uptake pipe is rusted through. You essentially have no muffler."

D'OH!!

But I have to say it's such a relief finally knowing what the problem is... It's just hard to stop beating myself up over the fact I had no idea where the exhaust was when I bought the scooter, nor did it ever occur to me to look *underneath* the exhaust once I found out where it was. People like me (clueless and impulsive) should NOT buy used vehicles on craigslist. M'kay??

But at least there is a plan in place. The shop in Livermore has shipped me one (1) lovely replacement exhaust which should get here by Friday. And on Saturday, Larry will replace it for me.

Best of all, I got to leave the scooter in his garage. Two reasons:

1. No humiliating ride back through the Mission
   
2. Instead, a ride on the (not loud at ALL) Ducati, baby!