My best friend CiCi drove off of the road and into a ditch on her first real driving expedition. She was on her way back from a day at the beach during July of 1997 and did not yet have her real license - she was still driving off of the 90-day paper one. As soon as she got home, she called me and told me every detail about her "horribly embarrassing" experience from start to finish.
             It was one of those days in mid-July so hot that there was only one thing to do whether or not one wanted to - go to the beach. CiCi, her sister BB, and their friend, Yan, who was visiting from Quebec for two weeks, loaded towels and beach chairs into the car and took off in the direction of the shore. They spent an enjoyable day there, hopping into the water when they got too hot on the sand and popping back out again when the water got too cold.
             Naively, CiCi navigated the car around the first few turns in the twisting road, which headed away from the beach. The occupants of the car were silent, worn out from a day in the sun. Everything was fine for a while but suddenly Yan broke the silence by saying calmly, "CiCi, there's a spider in your hair."
             "Where? Where? WHERE?" screeched CiCi in response, while trying to catch her breath in order to avoid hyperventilating. She has arachnophobia and nothing scares her more than spiders. Yan began laughing, which maddened CiCi to the extent that she tried to reach into the backseat and slap him, while BB picked through her hair, trying to locate the culprit. Unable to reach Yan, CiCi took her eyes off of the road ahead of her and turned around to look at him. At that point, the road curved left and the car continued on the path it had been on - straight into the steep ditch on the side of the road.
             The next thing CiCi saw were countless oncoming cattails, all taller than the car. She told me that it felt like a dream, that in a minute she would wake up a
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