[Ben Lahnger]

I got out of work last night nearly an hour late due to that last customer that took a while. Then my car died when I left to go home.

It stalled two blocks away from work just as I was about to turn onto a freeway entrance ramp, and I spent 10 minutes trying to get it to start up again while I was partially blocking the ramp with my emergency blinkers on and desperately hoping nobody rear-ended me. Then I got it to start, and I started driving it back to work to get it parked. It killed 3 more times on the way back, and each time it took a while to get it started again. And when it did start, it sputtered and hesitated like it wasn't getting enough gas, even when I was pumping the gas pedal madly.

So after a half hour of that I got it parked in front of my downtown store. I called another employee and got them to open the store this morning. Then I called a friend to come pick me up and drive me the 22 miles to my northwest side home.

So today I have to take a cab to the nearest Metro Park N Ride lot, then take a bus downtown. Then I'm going to get my car towed to the nearest garage and hope like hell this thing doesn't cost me a whole lot of money I don't have.

If this is an expensive repair, even a moderately expensive repair, it's gonna kill me because I don't know who I can afford not to pay at this point. Might be my cell phone bill ... and that will just screw with my job search, which was how I was going to dig out of the financial hole I'm in.

CRAP!