Light My Candle
I threw out my IKEA candles the other day. I can't have candles because they're dangerous. Well, they're not dangerous by themselves, but me and candles don't mix. The problem is I can't just light some candles and relax and do other stuff. I have to watch the candles burn. It's fascinating to watch the flame flicker and move and the wax start to melt, but inevitably I get bored. Instead of, say, writing something or doing something productive, I start to 'mess' with the candles. I blow just enough so they're about to go out, but not enough to actually blow them out--you know, just to fuck with 'em. Then when that's lost its fun, I usually start putting things in the flame--small bits of paper, the used matches, action figures, etc. I still haven't learned that burning plastic stinks like shit and I go open all my windows and what not. Something else I like to do is lay a couple of the matchsticks over the candle in a tee-pee fashion. What this does is create a much bigger flame. The matches don't burn--they just provide another means for the flame to feed off the wax. Anyway, I fell asleep last night and woke up to the sound of my smoke alarm screaming. One of the burning matches had fallen off the candle and into the candle dish which--get this--was FLAMMABLE! So the candle dish is on fire and the metal part of the candle that holds in the wax is on fire and I'm delirious, it's 3:00 AM, and I'm like oh shit! I almost burned the house down. And that was like the eighth time in the couple months that I've had the candles that I almost did that so I threw out the holders--they were all blackened anyway.