How Many Cal Graduates Does It Take To...

...transport a ten foot, eighty pound exhaust system for a BMW 330 in the interior cabin of a 2004 Subaru Outback? Apparently, more than two. Jonathan, aka Wagamama Boy, needed help hauling his repaired exhaust system (think the steel pipe that runs from the engine to the muffler) from a shop in Oakland back to his place in Alameda. Sounded simple enough over the phone on Friday morning as I volunteered my help (along with my Outback). Should have known better. At the shop on Saturday afternoon, we quickly realized that the piping would not fit completely within the cabin; rather than risk damaging my interior by using the old fashioned "trial and error" method, we tapped into our collective training, he as a physics and physical sciences graduate and me as a former engineering student, to attempt to find the right "angle of attack". Reminded me of an episode of Friends where Ross, Chandler, and Rachel attempt to haul a sofa up a twisting flight of stairs; predictably, the couch and the three movers all get stuck along the way in the narrow confined crevasses of the stairwell. Not realizing the futility of the situation, Ross repeatedly instructs the others to "Pivot! Pi-vot!". After some deliberation and some frantic mental calculations, Wagamama Boy and I determined that the only way to fit the part in the car was to open the front passenger side window and allow two feet of the pipe to extend out over the side mirror. On the drive back, I came very close to jousting with a street sign. Knowing our luck that day, the street sign would have won.