My girlfriend's stepfather, who details cars for a living, was working on a pickup truck in the driveway. During this entire ordeal. He can verify that things were okay up until this point. Until I started screaming. "BILL! BILL! THE OIL PAN IS FILLING UP!! IT'S GONNA OVERFLOW!!!" I watched, totally immobilized by the weight of the car and the ground below as the oil slowly filled the concave surface of the oil pan. Above me was the car, below me was the ground, on my right is the unlifted side of the car, and on my left was the increasingly heavy oil pan being fed continually my a stream of extremely hot motor oil. There really is no feeling like inevitable doom. The feeling of being trapped in a claustrophobic situation that is about to get worse. I don't know how Bill reacted to my screams. I can only remember thrusting my hand into that burning pool of fire, struggling to find the plug. I can only remember watching in terror as the oil crested over the wall of the pan and began running toward the gutter, only to be obstructed by yours truly. It seemed like an eternity before my blistered fingers came upon the plug, and at that point, the pain was too much to bear. I had to take my hand out of the oil, and recuperate for a few seconds. Amazingly, the used oil was still flowing into the overflowing pan like mad. So I lay there, trapped under a car, in a pool of oil that was flowing all around my body. I could feel it soaking into my hair, my shirt, yes, even my ass crack. And I remember thinking only about my hand being on fire. While we let my hand cool off, I'll tell you what I did wrong. The oil pan has two openings, right? One at the center of the concave surface that the oil flows through to fill up the inner reservoir. The other is to drain the oil out of the pan and into a milk jug, coffee can or whatever waste receptacle you happen to leave for oil recycling. Wrong. There is a third opening, which is necessary to release all the air inside the reservoir, making room for the oil. So without an escape for the air, it made a little bubble every once in a while, but for the most part stayed put, preventing the oil from draining into the pan. Suck-o for me. So once my hand felt good enough to move my fingers again, I replaced the plug into the underside of the car, cutting off the slowly diminishing flood that came from within. Once I had tightened it enough, I slid the oil pan out from under the car so Bill could see what the hell went wrong. All I could see were his feet, and then for a second his hand, as he popped the valve out releasing the trapped air from inside. Instantly, the oil resting on the surface of the pan vanished inside the hollow. I heard a heavy sigh from him, and then he walked away, telling me it wasn't so bad, and other encouraging bullshit. Since life as I knew it was over, I tried to be optimistic. Bill called my girlfriend and told her to pick up some cat litter and a change of clothes for me on the way home. I continued my miserable task. I once again unplugged the oil tank, and drained the remaining fluid from the car without further incident. Except for the part where my oil coated, first degree burned hands had to grab the oil filter and twist it off. Remember our exercise? Do it again after soaking your hands in boiling tomato sauce and coating the can in cooking oil. Anyway, The filter came off relatively easy, all things considered, and I figured things could only get better. Oh, the Horror. After reinserting the plug (for the last time,thank God), I grabbed the new filter and started screwing it on. I had a little trouble finding the threads and making it get on there, but I figured I just had it at a weird angle. This is very important later on. The point is, I got it on there until it was pretty tight. Then I gave it two more strained turns. Then I climbed out from beneath the car, and only then did I see the full extent of the oil spill. There was a little me-shaped oil slick on the ground. The oil had flowed about 2 inches to my neck, where it pooled around my head and ran in a thin line to the gutter. The rest flowed down my body, and ran under my knees, becoming an eighteen inch wide river that flowed to the side of the curb. I had absorbed most of it, though. I could feel the extra weight on my clothes. Bill gave me a few oil rags to wipe my hands with, then left to return the truck to the dealership he works for. I waited about 15 minutes more, not touching anything, not leaning on anything, trying to not even touch my horrible shirt with my back, when my girlfriend pulled up across the street. I sheepishly apologized for messing up the street and all, and she indicated that she thought it was pretty funny in a humiliating-for-me kind of way. I took one of the two bags of cat litter she'd brought, and began tossing generous handfuls onto the oil puddles. There was just enough litter to cover the entire thing. I opened the other bag and threw a few more handfuls just for good measure. All seemed well. She gave me a change of clothes and told me to change in the garage. I tossed my wet clothes onto an oil rag that used to be a bath towel, and changed into my new clothes. Aside from reeking of motor oil, and having the nastiest hair in the universe, I felt pretty okay. We inspected the damage, and decided it was not as bad as I thought. The litter had soaked up plenty of oil already, and it looked like none of it would flow past the property line. We decided to finish her car up. We lowered it to the ground, and I had her place the still shiny jack and tire iron in the trunk beneath the spare. I took off the oil cap, and poured in 4 quarts of the synthetic (expensive) stuff. When the dipstick said it was full, I replaced the cap, and declared the job complete. I told her to get in the car and back it up. She started the car, put it in reverse and moved about a foot when I heard the waterfall. She backed up about 5 feet more when she saw me waving my arms frantically screaming "STOP! STOP!" The car had left the most expensive trail of fluid I had ever seen for six feet, originating at the first pile of cat litter. She jumped out of the car and we both could hear something running from the car onto the pavement. I got down to look underneath, and I saw a very familiar looking puddle forming below. This is where I started swearing loudly. My girlfriend hurriedly got the shiny jack and tire iron out from beneath the spare and took them out of there nice smelling leather pouch and we jacked the car up again. I threw myself under the car again in my fresh clothes to see what the hell had gone wrong. My mind was telling me that something had gone seriously wrong with the car, like the block had cracked, or I had poked a hole in the oil pan.I took a rag, wiped off as much oil from the car as I could, and had her start the car again. Instantly, I was covered in the good (expensive) stuff. "OFF! SHUT IT OFF!" Dammit, I could not see where it was coming from. I knew it was not the plug, because it was spraying out of a place around the filter, possibly above. I felt around for a hole, but couldn't see anything or feel anything out of the ordinary. The next time she started it, the oil stopped spraying very suddenly. This was not good. I was laying in another 4 quart pool. At least this one was room temperature. So I decided that there wasn't a hole anywhere. I had her add half a quart and start the car again. Instantly, I had oil in my eyes, in my mouth, all over my face, up my nose. But I could see that it was coming from the filter. Maybe I could turn it a few more times. Maybe it was just too loose. So I must have lay there and forced that thing to turn ten more times. I kept expecting it to just not turn anymore, indicating I had achieved maximum tightness. But I could always get one more turn. Finally, I decided that if the filter was still not tight enough, there must be a hole in the oil tank somewhere. So we added the last quart and a half of the Good Stuff, and I crossed my fingers. The car started..... and there was no spray on my face. It would appear that we had done it. So she drove to the store to get more oil, and I utilized the second bag of cat litter. When she arrived back from the store, this is what awaited her:Two three foot wide puddles of cat litter, sitting six feet apart, linked by a six inch wide strip of more litter. The neighbors were loving us. Well, me anyway. We added the second batch of oil. She had splurged and bought Safeway Select motor oil. I silently cursed the Irony Gods. After we decided that the car was really alright, she went and got me another change of clothes, while I showered and cleaned up. Her car seemed fine, other then smelling strongly of motor oil. I told her that would go away eventually, as the entire underside of her car had been saturated. That was all 2 months ago. Her car still smelled every once in a while, but it was nothing really overwhelming. But the other day, when she parked in the driveway, Bill noticed a stain underneath the car. When he checked the oil, she was not at the ideal 4 quarts, but down to one. He drove it to Oil Can Henry's. They took a look underneath, and informed Bill that not only did I put on the wrong filter, but it was so wrong that they would not touch it, for fear of damaging the car permanently. So Bill took the car to a mechanic in Vancouver who is a personal friend. It would appear as though I screwed on an oil filter to some kind of GMC truck, rather than a '96 Integra. The filter was also threaded differently, which is why I had so much difficulty screwing the thing on. It would also appear that in the process of screwing on this filter that was not even threaded correctly, I mutilated the gasket on the filter to the point of nonexistence. The mechanic had to lift the car, and cut the filter in half to remove it. Essentially, the car is fine, and no permanent damage was done. They did have to file the existing threads a little, but nothing needed replacing. The first thing the mechanic said when they went to pick the car up earlier today was: "Who's the Ape-Man that got this filter on there?" So the moral is, go to Jiffy Lube. The End