How Judaism Almost Burned My House Down
So it's Sunday. I have successfully spent a full two days doing absolutely nothing except:
- Watch a ton of basketball. How hardcore were those games this weekend? I was riveted, practically nonstop. Kansas / Iowa State? Beautiful. I love basketball season. From 11:00 in the morning until 12:00 at night, always a game on.
- Play World of Warcraft. Oh yes, that wolf is finally mine. I thought it would be a total letdown, but it was more amazing than I ever imagined. If I had the presence of mind, I would totally post a screenshot, and will once I get organized. So awesome. I don't do anything anymore, besides run around like a madman on a wolf. Badass, thy name is my mounted orc with the funny hat.
- Watch a movie. Constantine? Okay, before we go any farther: I loved this movie. Like, irrationally, with complete acknowledgement that I've lost my mind, love it with all my heart and soul. Halfway through, I turned to Devon and was all "I am so into this movie," and it was so true that it kind of hurt. I think a lot of it has to do with how they managed to fill every single supporting role with an actor that I love. Rachel Weiss. Shia LeBeouf. That creepy guy from Identity ("Whore's don't get a second chance," indeed.). Anyway. LOVE. No idea why, but yeah. So there's that.
This is excellent, and fully how I had planned to spend the entire 3 day weekend, firmly on my ass, never going anywhere that was farther than the kitchen for some more chips. This being Sunday morning, there isn't much on television, and I feel the urge to not play more World of Warcraft, for fear that I become one of those Everquest type people who turn all albino and physically fuse to their chairs and start empathizing with their online persona and start talking in character in real life. You gotta be wary of that kind of thing.
So, I go grab my latest book (the ridiculous third and final book of Alastair Reynolds beautiful science-fiction / soap-opera-in-space series that rocks my world ever so much) and curl up on the couch. Because I shun natural light, and I feel that my apartment is reaching a heretofore unknown level of funkiness, having not left it for any good length of time in 2 days, I decide that lighting some candles would be in order. Now, if you'll recall as part of my weekend of extravagance last week, wherein I bought those hideous curtains, I also got, on insane clearance, that cute menorah and matching candles to add a little religious spice to my apartment. I decide that now would be a great time to try it out, perhaps the smell of sulfur and burning wax would distract from the funk.
I bust the menorah out of its little wooden box, get it all set up - line up and light all 9 candles. It is very nice, understated and classy. Contrasts well with the glowing Virgin Mary on the other side of the room. I get down to the business of interstellar warfare and the story of how this one girl totally stole this other girl's baby to spite her jilted almost lover, who then died in a hideous gravity well accident, and then the baby started sending out messages on how to create superpower weapons because she was all psychic and shit and ohmigod it's just like Passions, only so much better because there are lasers involved.
Anyway. So I'm reading and totally engrossed, when all of a sudden I'm all "what's that smell?" It's a nice smell, sort of campy and warm, and it's just this kind of idle question in my mind, while I'm reading, not anything I'm really focusing on. But, as time goes on, it's stronger and I finally pull away from the book and think, "I should go check that out."
I walk around the corner of my living room and look to the counter where my menorah is set up. There is the biggest goddamn blaze of fire I can recall, right there in the middle of my apartment. You see, when I set up the candles, I failed to properly keep the wooden box far enough away from the candles. I assumed they were slow burning affairs common to most household candles. No, these things were like, quickburning birthday candles who's wax evaporates into nothing. So when they reached the bottom, the flame made the little jump and had ignited this box as if it was full of newspaper or something. I'm talking huge flames leaping up into the air.
At first, I have no response. What does one do when your new religious symbol suddenly starts incinerating other parts of your house? Finally, I start to consider the other options. I settle on filling the nearby sink with water, grabbing a potholder from the kitchen, and then lobbing the flaming box into the sink. This is successful in ending the threat of the flames, but now we have a lot of smoke. I manage to get the oven hood to suck up the majority of it and the rest goes out the front door (it was remarkably clean burning wood) without setting off any fire alarms and getting firemen involved. I don't really know how I would have explained the whole "Menorah tried to burn my house down" thing.
So I learned a valuable lesson about the importance of keeping an eye on all active religious artifacts in the apartment, and all I lost was a small wooden box.
Jason: 1 , Pyromaniacal Religious Symbols: 0.
Suck it.
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