Fireball

Since it has gotten colder, Rex and I have found a new love for candles. We light them almost every day and see it as a cheap way to heat up our house (which is completely bogus, probably.) I think it works psychosomatically, though, because when we light candles I suddenly feel warmer. Oh, and sometimes I warm my hands by them. I feel like a poor hobo when I do that, but oh well. We have not turned our heat on yet this year and are stubbornly competing to see who will "cave" first and turn the heat on. It could prove to be a very cold winter.

As I sit here with a fleece blanket wrapped around me for warmth (no lie), I am laughing at the memory of lighting the candles in our room yesterday. Rex lit the match, but just as he lit it, the match broke in half and the flamey half catapulted out of his reach. It landed on our carpeted floor. Rex yelled, "Oh crap!" and dove for it. I started busting up laughing. In retrospect, this fireball in our room could have caused some serious problems, but it was just too funny to see the match seemingly jump out of Rex's hand and to watch him dive after this tiny little flying flame. He stood up after retrieving the hazardous match with a look on his face that was half laughing and half horrified. He sputtered disbelievingly, "You LAUGHED?? I almost burnt the apartment down and you think that's hilarious??" Actually, I did think it was hilarious. All's well that ends well, right?

Everything turned out just fine - he got the match put out in time and pretty much all that came of the experience was a lot of laughing. It made me think, though, that maybe we should reconsider the cost of heat against the cost of replacing a carpet. Then again, maybe I'll just light the matches from now on, and we'll be fine. :-)