Deployments suck. There is no other way to put it. They suck. Stink is not a strong enough word, and suck barely meets the criteria. Things that would barely shake me before, are killing me now. I'm the only one here to deal with things, and I just did not expect it to be this difficult.

Everything that can go wrong, has. And everything that can stress me out, is. Gah! It's enough to make me scream. But then I'm afraid my neighbors would think I'm being murdered and call 911. Our apartment has really thin walls. Really, really thin walls. Actually, I think they've gotten thinner since Blake left. I'm pretty sure I didn't hear all this noise before...but maybe that's just cause Blake was louder than them.

Moving on. On Thursday, I was all set to head to school and then head home to Indiana for the weekend. One of my good friends was getting married on Friday night and I was really excited to come home and watch them say "I do." And then there was a noise. And it was a loud noise. I am no car mechanic-heck, I barely know how to pop the hood so I did the only thing I knew how to do. Called my Dad. Who is 240 miles away at this point. He didn't know what it was, and it went away so he figured it wasn't anything too bad. So then I did the second thing I knew how to do. I bought the best package AAA has. I figured if I had any problem on the road home, then I could call them. And they would give me a rental car so I could get home.

I went to class and found out my professor was sick, and did the most logical thing a graduate student could do. Skipped class. I was headed home an hour and half early and I was psyched. Until I got outside. My car was leaking something red. I figured I would start driving anyways cause if it was something horrible I would know pretty quickly. Turns out I was right. Pretty quickly I realized that it was my power steering fluid, and I had no power steering. I stopped at O'Reilly's because in my opinion, they should know everything about cars.

They informed me that, because my fluid was "spurting" that my car could catch on fire! In other words I was stranded. And apparently, AAA doesn't kick in for another 3 days. They would however, tow me 5 miles for free and then charge me $5/a mile after that. Meaning that it would cost me $300 to tow my car from Bowling Green to Clarksville. After an hour and a half of people trying to help me and talking on the phone to everyone in the world, finally someone looked at my car and realized that oh ya, it's not spurting anymore. It's just leaking out onto the ground. I.E. I could have kept on driving and been half way home. Ugh.

I hate car problems. Especially when my husband is out of the country and I don't know another man within 120 miles. I don't deal with car problems. That's my husband's job or my dad's job. Unfortunately for my father, it has now become his job. I hate having stress in my life, and I hate feeling helpless. That is just what happens when your a woman and your car breaks down hours away from all of your family. I felt totally helpless sitting in the parking lot, not knowing how I was going to get home that night.

Although it turned out alright, it brought up the realization for the first time that I am on my own. This year is going to be long, and it's going to be a learning experience. I'm just hoping I don't have to relive that learning experience again. Lesson learned: purchase AAA long before you actually need it.