Oh wow, that did it!
You saved my life and countless hours!

Thank you! <3

Tried deleting my preferences also, no dice again.
It's something to do with the actual file. When I open other files in Maya their grids are perfect.

So it's not Maya's program settings...

Another thing that I first went to. u__u; No dice.
It looks like the grid ratio is off, where yz> x, axis-ly [word making up there] speaking.

Yep, I tried that also the first time it occured. My cat stepped on the keyboard. So I started over but I must have pressed the same key(s) she did. Also looked in the hotkeys for any nearby keys...

Another photo
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v21/ljlayouts/erg3.gif

No more square grid size. It's been distorted somehow to this giant rectangular thing and all the objects with it. I'm not...

Aye, that didn't work.

Basically the grid is rectangular instead of square and my objects are completely stretched (all of them)

Here is another, where the object is shaded....

I'm new to the program, doing an assignment for class and ran into this problem twice. After much searching to no avail, I've come here.

I must have pressed something close to the alt key and bam...