I woke up this morning when my alarm went off, and was about to get out of bed when I remembered that my car was broken. I was like, "Oh shit, as soon as I get out of bed, I'm going to have to deal with that. Screw it." Then I hit snooze, rolled over and went back to sleep.

I must have done this for hours, slipping back into sleep over and over again to escape having to deal with my car issues. I woke up well after noon, still full of anxiety. It was Less Than Restful.

I thought this whole smooshy car thing was going to demolish my bank account as well as my day But, as often happens in life, it didn't turn out quite as expected.

My first plan of attack was to take a hammer to the car and try to fix it myself. I wish more people out there were familiar with Father Ted, because you would already be laughing, knowing exactly what episode I'm talking about.

The priests get a car for a church raffle, and it gets a little ding in it, and Father Ted goes outside to hammer the dent out. Cut to hours later. Dougal says, "It's no good, Ted. You'll never get it absolutely perfect." Cut to the car, which now looks like a crushed-up soda can, because Ted has hammered it into oblivion.

I was fully cognizant of the fact that it could end up that way, with my car looking worse and worse the more I tried to "fix" it. But I just wanted to get the metal off the tire so I could drive. Of course, I neither destroyed nor fixed the car. The hammer was entirely ineffectual.. which was probably for the best.

I did a bad thing and drove the car down the hill. (It only intermittently made the metal scraping sound. Intermittent scraping is okay, right? Maybe not.) I just didn't feel like having it towed two blocks. Too much trouble. The auto body shop was supposedly open until three, and I got there at two. They closed at two. Feck.

I drove (I know, I know) a few more blocks away to another repair shop that I knew of. Fortunately, it was open. I asked the guy if he did body work and he said no, but I pointed out what I needed done and asked if he could just take the tire off and attack it with a hammer or something-- anything so I could drive the thing without fearing a tire explosion at any moment.

He agreed that they could fix it, said it would be done in about fifteen minutes. He said he'd charge me $30, which seemed like it might be overkill, but still much cheaper than I dared to dream of, so I sucked it up. I also pointed out that the door didn't really open either, so maybe they could fix that while they were at it.

I took my book and walked down a block to Starbucks. I had a Mocha Frappuccino™ while I waited for the car to be done. Add a shot to it, and it's actually good. Mmm.

The car people were as good as their word. Fifteen minutes later the car was driveable, the tire had not exploded, and the door opened as easy as pie. It even looks decent, too. On the whole, I'd say it was worth thirty bucks.

"These are actually my boobs. I find it interesting that someone is out there searching for a picture of their own boobs. It's called a mirror. Duh. But you can pretend these are yours. I know you want to."