'Couple's Lov.emaking Session Sets House Ablaze'

Note to self: Buy a proper candle snuffer, so that the local media isn't forced to print a photo of us next to a headline like that.

Because we infertiles rarely have enough laughter in our lives, I will share the story of our near humiliation with you. (Just don't tell R, because he will not be happy with me for sharing, even in this relatively anonymous forum... :-) )

As you know, one of the silver linings of infertility (albiet one that we would of course trade in a heartbeat) is being able to sleep in during a weekend morning because there is no pitter-patter of little feet wandering around the house. Well, yesterday morning after sleeping in, we were in an amorous mood. So, even though it was daylight out, R set the scene by lighting a bunch of candles in our room.

Afterward, I got up and was in the bathroom when I heard the sound of running feet. I looked in the mirror, and there was R, dashing toward the bathroom, one of his hands held high in the air and orange flames leaping from the top of it.

When we extinguish candles, we use an unbent paperclip to extinguish the flame by pushing the wick into the melted wax, because it doesn't create smoke in the process, like a candle snuffer does. When R was lighting the candles, he noticed that the paperclip had been left in one of them last time, and the wax had hardened around it. (He swears it was me who left it there.) When he saw that, he decided to just leave it, figuring that once the wax melted, he'd just be able to use the paperclip as usual.

What he didn't count on was the fact that a paperclip, being metal, absorbs heat.

When he went to extinguish the candles while I was in the bathroom, the paperclip was hot. So he decided to grab a Kleenex, fold it up and use that to grasp the paperclip.

It was an approach that worked well...until he reached the last candle. As he lowered the paperclip to the wick, the flame caught a corner of the Kleenex, setting it on fire while R was holding it. Not wanting to burn the furniture, and having no bucket of water immediately handy, R decided to race across the carpeted room to the bathroom. He was about four feet shy of the bathroom when the charred Kleenex bits began to fall to the floor, catching it on fire.

Flames, it turns out, really can dance. And apparently, so can R, when the floor is on fire.

I stood there with my mouth gaping open, trying to comprehend the scene in front of me, particularly the facts that our house had just been literally set on fire and that the flames were moving rather rapidly across the carpet. By the time I came to my senses and whirled around to fill a glass with water, R had stomped most of the fire out with his (bare) feet. Then he was dancing around because his feet hurt, although thankfully he didn't get any significant burns.

Our light beige carpet had some black spots, but somehow between using carpet cleaner, a scrub brush, and the vacuum, R managed to return the spots where the burnt Kleenex melted into it to a nearly normal color. Thanks to the ceiling fans in our bedroom and bathroom, as well as some frantic fanning of the air, we also managed to prevent the smoke detectors from going off.

We were particularly grateful for that, because how would you explain that to a mother who lives with you (like mine does)? "Um, well, we were in the mood, and I guess things just really heated up..."