I used to love filling my home with candle scent, but I can’t really burn candles in my house anymore — at least, if I do, I have to be really careful about it.  The reason is that I have a crazy, clueless, klutzy cat!  Here’s the story…

A number of years ago, in my first apartment, I had a headboard on my bed that had shelves in it.  My cat — who is a deaf cat and a little nuts, by the way — liked to stand or sit at the edge of the bottom shelf.

One day I was making my bed, and I had some jar candles burning on the top shelf.  Prince was walking back and forth across the headboard shelf, all affectionate.

Suddenly I heard an odd crackling noise.  I looked up, and the entire last half of his tail was on fire!  Prince had hooked his tail over the top shelf and right through the flame, and didn’t even know!  I batted at it, and the fire went out quite suddenly.  A heartbeat later, Prince suddenly got this freaked out look on his face, and ran off.

I thought I could try putting my scented jar candles somewhere else, but the next time he put his tail right into the jar, smothering the flame and getting hot scented wax all over his fur.

In retrospect, I was really lucky.  My cat easily could have run off with his tail still on fire, lighting up my apartment.  He could have been really hurt.  I’m lucky that I found out when I was right there to put out the flames that candles and my cat don’t mix!

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