The
football team my senior year was rubbish and I only went to the games
because many of the boys were on the field leaving the boy to girl
ratio squarely in my favor. At one of the early games I had a lighter
in my possession who's provenance I don't recall. I was ignoring the
game and filling my hand with the butane and then lighting it into a
fireball. Seemed like pretty harmless fun but on one of the
ignitions I released the fire ball and it came to rest in a ball of
well hair sprayed hair belonging to the girl in front of me. I am not
saying that presenting a rat's nest of hairspray is an inherent
safety risk but I surely wouldn't risk it, not on a dare. The flame
caught instantly and flashed over the top of her head and then was
out in less then a second. No damage to her head but the hair was
singed and smelling quite a lot like burned hair. Her friend turned
around and chewed my butt about being such a huge jerk and lighting
her friend's hair on fire. I felt terrible and I tried to explain
that it was just an accident. She was not buying it and I tried
unsuccessfully to justify why I had been playing with a lighter in a
way that lead indirectly, or directly if you look at the facts, to
her friend's hair being consumed in flame. She and her friend left in
a huff and I didn't think much more of the incident and I didn't even
remember who that girl or her friend were. Then years later after
college I was visiting a good friend of mine who had married his high
school girlfriend who I didn't remember being in the grade younger
then me but she sure had some attitude about me all standoffish and
whatnot. After a couple of visits I asked him why she disliked me so
much and he told me that I had lit her friends hair on fire when we
were at a football game. It all came back like bread made of fire on
the water made of hair. I once again apologized to her as she looked
on skeptically. She took a few more years to warm up to the idea that
it was an accident and that it was many years ago anyway. Lesson:
don't even accidentally light peoples hair on fire- they hate that.
