Car Spaz Attack

So Thursday night it started to sleet and then snow. We didn't get that much snow but the roads were solid ice Friday morning. Being the south, the entire city of Austin shut down. I had to go into work but I wasn't really worried. When I was first learning how to drive my dad took me to an empty parking lot that was iced over and made me practice turning and losing control on ice so that I wouldn't panic when it happened to me on the road. He also made a point of taking me out to drive when the weather was bad.

Things I didn't take into consideration:
1. I learned how to drive in a pickup truck.
2. I learned how to drive in an automatic.
3. I learned how to drive with proper tires.

So after I said goodbye to Salsa Boy (who told me to drive carefully), I got in the car and cautiously headed out. I was fine for about 3 minutes, until I had to pull out from our property. When I went to shift into second, the car spun out and hit the curb. I smacked my head against something (no idea what, didn't hurt very much in the grand scheme of my spastic behavior) and then wanted to smack it again since I just did exactly what I said I wouldn't do. The car seemed fine and I headed on my merry way to work, thinking the crappy handling was due to the ice and not me hitting the curb.

Driving home, when the ice was all gone, I realized that all was not happy in car land. In order to drive in a straight line I had to hold the wheel at an angle. For whatever reason, car repair shops are not open on weekends around here.  This morning I took my car in and....

Me: I think I need an alignment job.
Amazing Car man: No problem!
(after taking a look at my car): ....your control arm is completely busted and your tires are so bald they are about to burst.
Me: Oh man. Ummm, what's a control arm?

He took me back to my car and showed me what I did as well as the tread check which the poor tires failed spectacularly.  So apparently my accident was partially my fault for not knowing about how to shift gears on ice and partially because my tires had zero tread. They were super nice to me and didn't try to screw me over on the price (yay for having my Daddy on speed dial who also knows the price of every car repair known to man).

This is my most expensive spaz attack to date, breaking a grand (tires included in that).  C'est la vie. On the positive end of things, I didn't hit anyone else!