"Seeing as how the names of the innocent must be kept private to protect the guilty, I seek to do so in all honesty."

You know how it goes--just one of those evenings where you and your buds are sitting around, enjoying the best of what everybody has to share. The laughs fill the room with an intoxicating aroma, and the conversation exchanges are as stealth as a midnight bomber.

It was just another one of those good vibe, good times night, as we all know to well.

Ther we werw, just the whole gang of us hanging out--nothing more than a typical Wednesday night "Meeting of the Minds" (so to speak), where anything that dare be spoken, was a must to be heard.

The evening started out as nothing out of the ordinary-the routine remianed the same with the normal dosage of beatitude-which, by the way, is an exotic blend of herbs and spices.

As we lounged around feeling untouchable, a sudden tinge of unfamiliarity entered our surrooundings.

Now, for those of you that know me, you all know that the incident I'm about to describe holds truth. Myself and three others were witnesses to one of the most spectacular events I've ever experienced in my life.

In the mist of a Fourth Street Women's Club meeting, which was a bit more astronomical that night due to a remarkable meteor shower, I excused myself to temporarily retire upstairs. On my way back downstairs, I calmly and cooly strutted my way back to the couch, only to be taken over by my alterego "Grace", which resulted in me knocking over the ashtray.

As I cleaned up the ashes from the floor, I noticed this small piece of ash still floating around the room, and every onc ein a while it gently bounced off the surface it came in contact with. Normally, any other particale of ash would rest on whatever surface it came in contact with, but this wasn't the case with this mysteriously fluttering piece of....whatever!

I finally had to ask everyone else if they saw what I was seeing, and the only reason I was so paranoid about this damn piece of "ash" floating around the room was due to the fact that my Aunt's first fiance's friend's niece had an incident with, what he described as an indoor meteorite. Not to get into specifics, but they're believed to have originated in England and tend to be one of the many theories behind spontaneous combustion.

Well with the little bit of useless, trivial information I had stored in my mind, I kept an eye on this ash with a mission.

Every time it would land on the sleeve of a shirt and nonchalantly get brushed off, and every time it would spring off the wall, this tiny particale seemed to be generating more and more energy. I noticed it start to pick up speed in between its contact with stationary objects, and that's when it hit me. This was no ordinary piece of dust, this was a definite indoor meteorite.

Knowing the volatile potential of these natural phenomena, I knew something had to be done to deter this indoor meteorite, or the Fourth Street Women's Club could be the next name on the universal extinction list.

Without raising too much commotion amongst my cohorts, I calmly stated that we were in the presence of a perilous situation, knowing that even a booming sound wave could set this little meteorite into a frenzied state.

The tiny speck of cosmic ash lofted its way towards the ceiling and bounced its way back towards us. It gradually began to pick up heat and speed each time it struck a surface, and that when everyone else realized this thing needed to be rerouted, or it would blow us all up into smitherines. I knew that merely containing a indoor meteorite would do no good, because it could just work itself up more in a confined space.

Our only hope was to redirect this cosmic marvel out of harm's way (mainly ours), and send it out into the big, bad world. Feeling a slight current of air coming out of the chimney, we all looked at each other and a giant light bulb appeared over our heads. The meteorite was rapidly growing to a considerable size now, gaining both heat and speed, and with each passing second,we were in more fear of losing our precious lives.

This astronomical oddity, now the size of a golf ball, hit the living room wall facing the fireplace, and with the timing of a Seiko watch, we all ran behind the meteorite and blew it into the chimney. The upsweep of the air current from the chimney seized the indoor meteorite and swept it up the smoke duct, and then spewing it out into parts unknown.

After breathing a sigh of relief, we all collapsed on the floor completely exasperated, and tried to make some sense out of what had just occurred. I then relayed the story of the only other indoor meteorite instance I had known of, and we counted our blessings knowing that if we had not acted the way we did, we could have become cosmic dust particales ourselves.

So just a word of warning--indoor meteorites cannot be contained or extinguished. The only way to spare youself from their volatile nature is to redirect the course of travel back into the great outdoors, which may temporarily put your mind at ease, but further endangering the live of countless others.

There's no doubt in my mind the indoor meteorite we motioned out of our lives is still floating around somewhere in the universe, and right now, as I tell you this true account, there could be a cosmic piece of dust floating around your room. Don't take any old piece of fluttering ash for granted, or it could turn out to be more than you bargined for!