Fun day

Today I went down to hang out with Karen and watch a movie. I had a couple or errands to run before the movie so I went to pick her up about 11:30. She came out and said "your car is smoking". I was like nah it is just steam or something. I have great faith in my car's internal diagnostics they often seem to be even over protective. We left and headed to the first errand. Every time we stopped at a light the smoke returned, which seemed bad. I pulled over and we couldn't figure out what it was. We started driving again and then shortly stopped again. This time I immediately looked under car and could see the smoke was coming from exhaust and there was a liquid dripping rapidly and pooling on ground. I moved car back and saw that the liquid was red. Called Roger first as he is the most knowledgeable car nut on my speed dial. He said it is most likely transmission fluid. This is bad especially considering the speed it was leaking out. Luckily I was within a few miles of Pohanka Lexus. Even more luckily their service department is open 7 days a week 6-11. They set me up with a loaner RX330. They called while I was at movie and said I would need a new transmission. I have an extended warranty until 100,000 miles and they are double checking that I am covered tomorrow. Most likely I again will be driving a loaner RX330 to my parents for Thanksgiving. Karen pointed out that it could have been much worse if it had happened on way home later this week, I still could have lived without this complication. We even made to the movie on time after all this drama.