The keys are handed back in, and the saga of the weekend car rental is done. The woman at the car rental place tried to kill me while checking the car out - apparently she expected me to have the car in neutral, so she tried to start the car, which of course jumped backward (as it was in gear, like they always tell you to do when you park a manual transmission). More excitement than needed to start my day, but I made it to work a little ahead of when I had been getting in, and I have a full day of stressful things ahead of me, like trying to get our money back for our apartment, and trying to line up a guy to clean our heater (which in August is nearly impossible - everyone is on vacation). The apartment in Ann Arbor got a little tricky too, as they rather of a sudden expected us to give them the deposit on the apartment. As it turns out, I don't have a checkbook and Sasha doesn't have enough money to pay the full deposit, so we had to borrow that. There are so many little details - it's just crazy.

Am I the only one that starts my car with the clutch and the brake depressed--because usually, you know, the car is parked in gear?

Oh - forgot to mention that - she was on the -passenger- side. No way she was reaching the clutch or the gas. I tend to start the car with both depressed, but that's partly because I am convinced that no matter how flat the surface, as soon as I press the clutch the car will accelerate to 60 and smash into a tree....