It's very wet in Boston this morning; rain at a good pace plus snowmelt makes for interesting driving -- lots of deep puddles and road splashup.

After about 25 minutes of driving, the car began running very rough, tach all over the place at idle, surging at speed (< 25 mph). Then the car quit completely at an intersection and I couldn't get it started again. I waited a few minutes (unhappily, the intersection was on a hill, I was pointing up, and so I was stuck there!) and then it started up again but then quit after about 10 seconds. Tried a few more times and managed to get it going enough to get out of the intersection a block or so with the "Check Engine" light on, but when I slowed down, it promptly died again. This time I couldn't get it restarted.

Fortunately, I was about a block from my boss's dad's house, so there was no immediate need for a tow or a spousal rescue. Now for the questions:

1 - Was this behavior due to the rain? If so, why was only my car affected? If not, what happened?

2 - Should it be looked at by a mechanic?

3 - Will I be able to start up the car and drive it home this afternoon?

4 - Assuming the problem was the damp, how do I explain to my wife that our 30K+ car is afraid of water?

-Marc