The Mixer Mix Up

So, I'm driving home last week (in Scruffy, naturally) when I went over something in the road. I didn't see it, but heard the double thump of it going under the wheels or bouncing off the underside. Hope it didn't damage any tires...

As I'm proceeding home, I start hearing a scrape whenever I hit a larger dip in the road. I had flashbacks to the time the crappy hanger on the crappy exhaust pipe had broke. I drove home, hoping for everything to hold together and wondering how my heavy duty double bracketrey could have failed. Headed over to that side when I got home for a look, and saw a bar in the wheel well, pointing towards the tire.

(I did a closer shot with one of those helpful arrows pointed at it)

Huh. How did that happen??? And it's way away from where the bracket is. Went around the other side and went to drop down and get a look at what happened.

And found this poking out from the front end!!! That's no hanger!!! Turned out it was a paint mixer that had gotten flattened and went over the tip I'd made up!!!!

In other news, I think the high temp paint I used on it isn't a very effective rust preventative!!!