Discussion: I had an experience like that recently, too

But it's not what you're thinking. Some corrosion on the electrical wiring where it enters my house caused one of the wires to not conduct well, and as a result the furnace wouldn't run. Came home and indoor temperature of the house was in the 40s. Eventually I got the power company to do a patch to get things running again, and I have an electrician coming on Tuesday to do the rest of the work to fix it reliably, but while the problem was there, two controller boards in my heating system blew up, and I had to have the furnace guy come out twice.

What you need are candles. And if you say that you already have candles, then what you need are more candles. I can not tell you exactly how many more (though Iamstillhungry might be able to provide a precise calculation, as he is an applied mathematician, caveated by the fact that he is an applied mathematician in Texas), but generally speaking, if police have no stopped by numerous times to inquire what manner of establishment it is you are running, then you need more.

Having a plethora of candles doesn't help much in this day and age becase the new ones don't give off much heat.

Whoa - for some reason this caused a flashback to a time long, long ago.

No shit, there we were, Ranger class 4-81, in the swamps of Eglin AFB in Florida, February 2001, having come south from the balmy north Georgia mountains. Temps dropped with the sun, we'd been wet most of the day, stuff freezing left and right. Survived it - 5 guys tightly huddled around a cigarette butt for warmth. Wish we had a couple of jj's candles, would have a made a world of difference.

The above is a war story - you can tell because it starts "No shit, there we were..." That distinguishes it from a fairy tale, because those start with "Once up a time..."

And hang gliding stories start, "There I was, thought I was gonna die...", which is often abbreviated in print as TIWTIWGD. Is there an intro for orienteering stories?

All orienteering (mistake) stories will begin with: "If only I had..."

Except for the stories that begin with: "The map totally sucked hot, stenching, spoiled tomatoes."

Nancy just pointed out that a cigarette butt doesn't give off much warmth. I explained to her that five guys tightly huddled do.