Here is a True Story that happened to me:
Once Upon a Time, Many Years Ago on a Winter Evening in Kansas City Missouri:
I was driving center lane, in evening rush hour traffic jam, on Interstate 435 highway Northbound on the long straight hill approaching the I-70 cloverleaf. It was sleeting and snowing but traffic was zooming at 45mph.
Back then my poor old Ford Escort already stank inside from age, so I started smoking cigars on the hour commute. I had stopped for a burger and shake before getting on the highway home, and inhaled them. I had a full fast food coke in the center cup holder, and an almost empty pretzel bag on passenger seat, with about a cup of loose salt at the bottom. On the passenger floor was my tall - rubber fur lined - snow boots which I took off to better work the pedals on the drive home. Also on the passenger floor was my open cassette case with 75 music cassettes, bare in their slots. In the back seat was an aerosol spray can of ETHER I'd used that morning to spray in my carburetor to get the car started. OK, I had to set the stage so you'd understand what happened very quickly.
OK! - I had lit a new large Joya de Nicaragua cigar and had puffed it up hard so it had a cherry red big glowing coal on the tip. I could hold it in my mouth and puff and blow the smoke up and to the side and not need hands until the ash needed tipping. I was puffin, digesting my meal, cruising home, blasting some tunes super loud. (I'd mounted Jensen Triaxial 6x9's inside some home speaker mini cabinets and had them wedged in hatchback area, with a 50 watt amp which was large at the time.)
Suddenly cars in front slammed brakes! A sea of red taillights up ahead! I tried to the keep car steady but i was going to have to brake hard in a few seconds. I reached the "vee" of my two fingers of my right hand up to remove the cigar and put it in the ashtray quickly, and instead closed my fingers right on the cherry red flaming hot coal tip.
YARGH!!! I Screamed and flung the cigar forward, hard, by reflex. Most of the flaming coal broke off against the dashboard gauge cluster and ricocheted right into my polyester slack's crotch! The rest of the cigar, still burning, laid against the speedometer plastic window, melting it. I started shrieking as the coal burned through my pants, trying to control the car and not wreck. The coal burned thru just below my zipper bottom, burned thru my underwear and burned my thighs and naughty parts, then sat in the butt hole area of my pants burning a hole in them and the seat. My fingers were also screaming in pain.
I tried to stand while driving, literally scooting my butt up the back of the driver seat until the steering wheel stopped me, and had to "stand" on the pedals. I could not sustain that stance and kept sliding back down, sitting on the live coal and jumping back upward, shouting.
Time was up! This had all happened in two seconds, and now I had to brake Hard to avoid smashing into the slow down ahead. Three things happened the moment I hit the brakes hard. The Large cup of Coca Cola dumped forward into the case full of music cassettes, and was quickly followed by all the salt from pretzel bag. All of the business end of the tapes was now floating in salt and coca cola.
The third thing? Oh not much. Just the can of Ether Spray for starting engines shot forward, hit the back of my seat, knocked off it's lid, and bounced/rolled under my driver seat - wedging the can with the spray nozzle in full spray mode. The Escort quickly filled with ether mist, coating all the windows with an oily slime. Now, I cannot see.
I had to stop shrieking, because I figured if I breathed in the Ether Fog, I was dead. I steered with my burned hand, trying to keep my a-hole off the fire in the seat, and used my other hand to roll down the window and stick my head out, and somehow I managed to swerve through the cars on the fast left lane and come to a stop in a slush bank.
I figured anything was better than breathing any more of the Ether so I flung open the door and jumped out in my stocking feet into the slush and stood there coughing. I managed to fish the spray can out, and somewhat air out the car. I could hardly see my eyes were stinging so. I used napkins and slush to smear enough of the oily coating off the inside of the windshield to see to finish driving home. Then I got back in the running car, with frozen wet feet. The coal had burned all the way thru the seat and I put some slush in the hole and put my coat on it and sat on that, altho I could hardly sit from the burns.
As soon as the adrenaline rush died down as I sat back in the car and shut the door, the fumes hit me with instant nausea and I immediately projectile vomited the entire chocolate milk shake in one big arc which evenly divided itself between my two fur lined snow boots.
That night I discovered the damage to the tapes. I tried to save them, but they were a total loss. So I know you are having a bad day and I am sorry what happened to you, but I thought if I shared this true story you might feel better.
Copyright 2012 VROUK
