During Spring Break, I witnessed a car going up in flames. Around one o clock in the morning I woke up to the sound of an intense booming noise and thought, for some reason that some part of my house had exploded, still half asleep. So I ran to the window (why I was running to the window when clearly our house had just exploded, I have no idea) and looked out to see flames just down the street. With my mind starting to shrug off the laziness of sleep, I realized that it was not, in fact, coming from the other side of my house but down the street. So, I went to my parents room to get a closer look. Almost directly under their window, there was a car going up in flames and all we could do was stare. There was a cop car sitting outside blocking off the street, so we figured the fire trucks were on the way. I guess what I found most interesting about the situation is how fascinated people are by 'out of the ordinary' events. If you really put it into simple terms, the situation would go as follows: "there was a loud noise, a car was on fire, the firemen put it out". The End. I always wonder what type of meaning we get out of having experienced events such as these that are 'out of the ordinary'. I wonder if we saw cars being set on fire every day if it would slowly turn into 'the ordinary'. It seems that we as people reserve our amazement for things that do not happen everyday and I wonder why that is. It's interesting that we don't hear on the news everyday about doctors saving lives, which they do - everyday. All around the world. Although, sometimes, when the saving of these lives are connected with some amazing story of survival, this is news. I guess to answer some of the questions, this event will remain in a relatively private sphere. I did not hear any news of the incident on television, and except for the slightly burnt patch of grass, you never would have expected that anything was amiss the night before. The way in which I experienced this event effected my knowledge of it because I don't think it would have had as major an impact if I were to see it on television; "oh, another car on fire", versus experiencing it first hand.