does My use of Italics distract You?

My car has been dead for the last two weeks. Students in the automotive department at my university have been working on it. It takes longer, but they're cheaper.

It was finally ready to be picked up today.

(shout praises!)

I went down to the shop, they gave me six copies of the receipt (six? What the crap are you going to do with six copies??) which I had to take down to the first level of the school, the cashier's office, to pay for it. She stamped my receipts, all six, then I hiked back up the hill to the automotive building (These buildings are not close together. I won't try to estimate distances for you, cuz I'm bad at it. Suffice it to say, they're not close) and handed him the receipts and he gave me my car key. Kind of a long process just to pay for a car, but I won't complain. It's done now. Sweet.

Only thing left to do is drive my car out of the garage door and into the parking lot.

Little did I know that this was the tricky part.

I had to turn to the right a little to avoid a cement column and as I pulled forward there was a grating sound. Ah, probably just driving over the vents, no worries, it's all good. Until the grating turned into a screeeEEECH!!

Oh fart.

Wouldn't that just be my luck? I finally get my car back and I wreck it driving out of the repair shop! Good grief.

Well, as it turns out, a piece of machinery caught onto my tire rim when I pulled right and I had been dragging it. I didn't even see it. It was one of those...geez, I don't know if they have a name...it has two ramps, one for each tire, so you can drive up and onto a higher platform (Would that be considered "machinery"? Not really. Let me re-phrase: "a car repair prop caught onto my tire rim...") It was dingy yellow, greasy silver and angry looking. I dragged it for about two feet before I stopped the car. Luckily I didn't hurt it at all and my car looked untouched.

So no damage done. It only took a small chunk out of my tire rim and attracted the attention of every instructor and student in the shop as they stared at the idiot girl in an idiot car dragging their idiot prop as the echo of screeeEEECH! bounced off the cement walls.

Thus marking the disintegration of the last remnant of confidence I had as a woman in a car repair shop. Almost no damage done.

My gawsh I am such a klutz (bangs head on desk).