What's Burning?

Friday night, 16 of us went out to eat for Soldier's farewell dinner. We had fun while we were there, but the reason we were there hit me as we were leaving. I managed to hold myself together, but it wasn't easy. Sister rode with me. She is in controversy with herself about the guy that she is in love with. She'll die when she reads that because she denies that she loves him. He's asked her to go to the beach with him this summer and she kept trying to come up with reasons not to go. I have been relentlessly insisting that she go, and finally today she conceited and has agreed to go. Saturday night, a group of us from church went to Northeast Alabama Community College to see "West Side Story." They did an awesome job! If you have never heard, their theatre program is top-of-the-line. They do a major production every semester - three a year. This summer they are doing "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare; Abridged." The tickets are only $5/person; you all should go! When the play was over, Roommate and I went to our friend's house to pick up her daughter. We ended up leaving her there to spend the night. Here's where the fun starts! I was driving, but we were in her brand new car: black-on-black-on-black Mustang convertible. We had the top closed because it was a pretty cool outside. We both lit up a cigarette as soon as we left our friend's house. I don't know if she just smokes faster than me, or if she just throws out more of her cigarette than I do. Either way, she tossed hers out several minutes before I was ready to throw out mine. She rolled up her window and several seconds later she starts going crazy. "Oh God... I think something's burning! I know it didn't fly back in, I watched it! I bet it's in the blanket... It's gonna catch the whole damn car on fire! I can't find it. What's burning!?!?" This is all going on while she has gotten out of her seat belt and is trying to crawl into the back seat. I'm trying to drive and get the interior light turned on while I'm watching her crawl over. I can smell it too, but since I was driving, I was no help in finding the fire. When I looked over at her again... I found the fire. IT WAS IN HER HAIR!!!!!! It wasn't the entire butt of the cigarette; just the burning cherry. I said, "OH!!! It's in your hair!!!" So she starts beating herself in the head, yelling, "Get it out! Get it out!" It's a good thing we were on the straight part of the highway because several seconds had passed by before I put my eyes back on the road. Apparently all that slapping herself in the head paid off because there was no more fire. Well, there was never an actual fire, but there was some smoldering hair. I was laughing so hard that I had tears streaming down my face. It's a good thing that she didn't use any hairspray that day. Otherwise, her head would have exploded before we figured out where it was coming from! I am still laughing as I write this. By the time it was over, she was yelling, "Quit laughing at me!" I couldn't help it. I said, "I'm crying because I'm laughing so hard!" She said, "Great. The next time you fill out one of those Myspace surveys, this is going to be your answer to the 'when was the last time you cried from laughing so hard?' question!" I didn't even try to make her feel any better either. Still laughing so hard that I could barely breathe, I said, "Yeah, my answer will be 'Your tragic cigarette-hair incident!'"