Wax is as Flammable as Gas

Christmas Eve was spent in solemn prayer at Mass when we weren't battling a squirming and impatient four year old, then back to the house for a drink and dessert with family.

A peaceful late evening with a fire in the fireplace, and Christmas presents all laid out beneath the tree. An idyllic vision of perfect Christmas harmony. A candle was burning down to the end of its wick and I asked my husband, "should I throw the rest of the wax in the fire?" and he replied, "sure."

Now we are both reasonably intelligent people and yet we sometimes make incredibly stupid decisions. You would think one of the advantages of being married is that when one person decides to do something stupid, the second person is the voice of reason. You would think.

But in this case, it didn't happen. What did happen was: I threw the wax in and an immediate whoosh nearly knocked me over. And we had a conflagration to rival any industrial incinerator.
We dashed out to the front yard and were horrified to discover the chimney cap glowing orange and sparks were flying out.

I wanted to call the fire department, and yet was mortified at the thought. My husband said, wait, it will burn down. It took about twenty minutes for the orange to disappear from the chimney, and slowly the fire in the fireplace died back to a comforting blaze, instead of the blast furnace it had been. I stayed awake till 3 am, worrying about creosote, and cracks and smoldering embers.

We have had four near fires in our family's history and all of them have been my fault. First an advent wreath's candles that burned too far down and caught pine cones on fire (threw it in the sink-no damage), then placing a Pop-Tart in a toaster whose automatic pop-up feature had worn out (flames coming out of toaster-pulled the plug and it went out. Who knew the sugar would burn?-scorched underside of cupboard), then putting chicken breasts on to boil and going outside to read (smoke detector went off-roiling clouds of black smoke came out--took me several dashes inside to open windows. Called the fire department and told them not to come even if neighbors were worried about the black smoke-there was no fire. Who knew that three chicken breasts could generate that much black smoke?)

So, I've come to the conclusion that I cannot be trusted around any source of heat. Consider yourself forewarned.