Smoke

Frankie is not bright.  I've come to terms with it.  Made my peace with it.  He is a firebug.  He LOVES candles, which is problematic.  I love candles, but all of his whiskers have curly q's on the end because he's singed them off.  As soon as I've used the ones I have, I'm afraid I'm done with candles.  He's going to burn my house down. 

Anyhoodle, the other day I had lit a candle and set it on the kitchen counter.  I walked into the front room, realized I had forgotten something in the kitchen and walked back.  That took, maybe, fifteen seconds as my house is the size of a standard minivan.  Well, I round the corner and saw Frankie standing in the sink.  He had his front paws in the sink, back paws on the edge of the sink.  He was eating a brown, floppity piece of lettuce, which is another of his quirks.  I stopped dead in my tracks, unable to really make sense of what I was seeing.  There was smoke rolling off of his butt.

"Is he smoking?"  That's all I could think.  I finally came to my senses and took off running.  As soon as I got within five feet or so I could smell burned hair.  Bad.  I grabbed him and ran my hand down his back and found a super hot spot at the base of his tail.  He had somehow set his butt on fire.  There were no flames and I'm assuming even Frankie would realize if he were actually on fire.  But he almost torched himself, enough to have smoke rolling off of him. 

I don't really know how he even did it.  It wasn't the tip of his tail, or his ear.  The small of his back, really.  I have no idea what he did, but I think we're done with candles.