Ten Days After I Leave You At The Shop And You Crap Out On Me Again?

OK, the start of my drive home from work today was absolutely terrifying.  I make a right, step on the gas pedal ... and my car starts lurching.  It can't even accelerate right without seizing up.  Back and forth it rocked until finally something in the engine or the fuel system or whatever connected and it began running smoothly, but I had to turn the corner, almost a mile away, before that happened.

Suffice it to say that scares the shit out of me.  I have been complaining for some time that once in a while the car will respond to my acceleration (well, even me holding my foot down on the gas pedal without applying any further pressure) by seemingly backing up, even shuddering.  That was for only for a second at most, a momentary blip, and since The New Mechanic Around The Corner wasn't able to recreate the problem the weekend before last, I didn't pay much attention to it.  But stretch that out to The Longest Minute Of My Goddamn Life and you can bet your sweet ass there's a problem now, and replication or no, I think there's a fucking problem.

Oh, did I mention I was virtually out of gas?  I was virtually out of gas.  I thought about getting it in the morning, but then this semi, which was on the right turn lane, decided it made a mistake and wanted to cut in front of me while I was going straight to the gas station close to home, which, by the way, jacked up its price for gasoline.  And since I woke up and drove out early just in case they were going to raise the price during the day, that it appeared to do so overnight eliminated any need for me to fill up before going to work, so I went into work instead.

So, yes, maybe that jerking motion was my car trying to get every single drop of oil out of the gas tank that was still in there before I made a complete fill-up.  But I've been that low before, and even lower (not just below the slash, but below the "E" -- yes, I'm a rebel), and my car has never reacted so violently.  So, there may be an easy explanation, or there could be something very wrong with my car.

If this bullshit happens again tomorrow, when my tank is full, I'm gonna fucking freak out.