I am not here to discuss the third grade teachings of the moon as the title of this post would have you believe. Instead I am here to discuss my quiet and sudden obsession with candles and what happens when you try to give them life when a wick has gone rogue.
I have a drawer full of candles of all sizes and scents in my office. There are some I don’t much enjoy, but won’t get rid of because I like my candle drawer filled to the brim. As much as it goes against the grain in this Marie Kondo world of unloading items that do not spark joy, this drawer just gives me a certain amount of personal satisfaction.
Along with these candles are books of matches. I’m not sure how I procured so many of them. Outside of the time I pretended to inhale a cigarette when I was fourteen years old, I never smoked. Lucky for me they are great for lighting things other than cigarettes.
Like candles.
I have two candles I am especially fond of and are aptly named “Books” and “Bungalow.” If you light them together, you would swear you were reading a book in a bungalow.
Why I didn’t think to light the “Beach Grass” is beyond me. Just like that I could have been reading a book in my beachside bungalow. Ahh, so many missed opportunities.
The wicks on both these candles had gone into hiding. I tried everything short of calling in Search & Rescue, but nothing worked. They sat for months until I had the bright idea of hitting YouTube the other day. Don’t ask me what took so long. Like my prepubescent boobs, I’m always a little bit behind.
I found this guy Jeff and in about a minute and a half, discovered how I could easily dig out my wicks.
Bottom line is you point a heat gun at the problematic candle, melt the wax, pour the melted wax out, and voila! You have found your wick. Light and be merry.
Unfortunately for me, I do not possess a heat gun and neither does DH. The latter really surprises me since he owns more tools than the local Harbor Freights.
Fortunately for me, I do own a blow dryer. Two of them, in fact. So, I chose the one I thought would produce the most heat and got to work.
It started out well enough. It was a wee bit messy, but I was happy to see what the man said would happen — the wax was melting. I grabbed a couple squares of toilet paper to wipe the sides of the candle jar and continued on.
Except after another few seconds of torching my candle, toilet paper squares were not really cutting it. Because I’m a genius, I placed a nearby catalog under the candle to catch any wax that was spilling over.
And because I am also a rule follower, I poured out whatever wax was melted as I was told to do. Lo and behold my once hidden wick was standing out in the open like a soldier ready for battle.
I repeated the steps above for candle number two.
Later that evening as I was preparing for bed, I stepped into the bathroom to find it smelling like a candle factory. That would have been just fine seeing that the scent was a combination of my favorite candles, but then I felt some things under my bare feet.
Upon closer inspection I discovered they were dried up balls of wax. Melted to the floor tile. All of the floor tile.
And just like that, within a nano second of this discovery, the balls of wax seemed to multiply by the hundreds, perhaps even thousands.
Like fruit flies.
They were everywhere.
On the mirrors, walls, sink, countertop, toothbrushes. On the toilet, in the toilet, over the toilet. On the back of the door, the shower curtain, the window shade. And if I were a betting woman, I would guess on the ceiling as well, but I’m too short and afraid to look.
I set out to get it cleaned up, when I had a thought.
And that’s when I lit my “Clean” candle. Still waiting for results, but my mama didn’t raise no quitter.
Also, thanks for the warning, Jeff. Not everyone is a Captain Obvious.