Car trouble

My little black Neon, affectionately known as "Pepper" since college, has been a bit ill lately. We've yet to determine if she's going to pull through or not. I noticed her acting weird as I pulled into the school parking lot for my first day on Friday. Fortunately, I was able to coast safely into a parking spot and ended up forgetting about her morning hiccup during the day, as I was trying to digest all of my new information. It wasn't until I got into the car to leave school around 4:00 that I realized that it was more than just a hiccup and I was actually very fortunate to have made it into the parking lot that morning. I had to floor the gas pedal to even get her to move a short distance. I called David to tell him I was having problems with the car and was glad that we skipped our pleasantries and day review in order to discuss the car right away because I no sooner told him my problem and his phone died. So I sat in the parking lot trusting that he would come to my rescue, hoping that he actually knew which elementary school I'd earned my new job in. Within 15 minutes my knight in blue Expedition arrived, having only stopped at one wrong school along the way. We ended up having to leave the car there and drove home to call our mechanic. He loosely diagnosed our problem with the dreaded T word (transmission), which he doesn't do, and we made calls around to get other opinions. We returned to the school parking lot yesterday to check the transmission fluid, only to find it empty. So today we picked up some more fluid and refilled it and were thrilled when the car was actually able to drive away from the parking spot. Unfortunately as David pulled away it looked like we'd just sacrificed a small animal because there was a pool of red transmission fluid on the ground below where the car had sat. We had to leave the car in the parking lot (AGAIN!) and now we're going to have it towed to a garage where they can hopefully repair whatever seems to be leaking profusely. I must admit, we've enjoyed these past 6 years without car payments, but I'm pretty sure that time is coming to an end very soon. It may be time to retire Pepper. She's served us well these past 10 years, but I'm not so sure how much longer she's going to make it.