Some things you just don’t think about until they save your life. On Valentine’s Day my wife and I were awoken at 3:30 by our smoke detector going off. Yours truly, idiot that he is, had gone to bed and left a candle burning on the mantlepiece downstairs. Some hot wax had melted off and caught a big box of maches on fire and set the wall on fire. Because our smoke alarm went off, we were able ot put out the fire, and the damage was confined to a scorched wall which a little spackle, retexturing and a quick paint job have rendered good as new.

It could have been much, much worse. I urge you all to go out and buy a fire extinguisher and to check the batteries in all your smoke detectors. The lives they save could be the yours and the ones you love. It happened to me.