Armistead Fondleberries' Tales of a City that Never Existed - The Slick Ricks

I've recently been e-mailing back and forth with a former college roommate.

Trevor and I haven't talked to each other for many years (the internet isn't just for porn anymore: that's right, baby, get your stalk on). We both have grown up (somewhat) and have had some interesting experiences during the hiatus. That's nice.

In one of my e-mails, I mentioned that I remembered once wearing a sweater of his and bursting into flames. Literally.

At the time, we both were known for using a bit of hairspray (he tells me now that some of the people we hung out with secretly referred to us as the slick Ricks. I don't know whether to accept this as a nod to our incredible rockabilly style, or to search out those friends and wish them a happy go fuck yourself. For the record, some of these friends were Wolf, Masturbation Dave, Lank, and Barefoot Dave---the latter name given to avoid any confusion among the Daves).

As the story goes, I had borrowed one of Trevor's sweaters for some reason or another before we headed out to a nearby pond to smoke with the very same friends. Standing in the requisite circle, we passed around the old peace pipe until the supply was gone. And we were gone. While in my spot, I held a lighter by my side, flicking it. On. Off. On. And poof. I burst into flames.

The next thing I knew, I had hit the dirt. Hard. Apparently the other slick Rick had tackled me to put out the fire. And save the sweater. It was a great sweater, albeit comprised almost entirely of hairspray.

It turns out that Trevor remembered the day I caught fire. He provided this detail: the sweater belonged to his friend Heather.