Sugar/Booger

The scene at my apartment Wednesday night was ridiculous.
Maybe you heard that an ice storm caused 1.2 million customers of the royal Duke Power company to be without juice last week. Apparently my place was one of the first to go as the weight of iced branches crashed down on utility lines all around my humble domicile just before dinner time.
Carolina, my quick-witted fiance had arrived earlier to light an array of $8 scented candles and although the place was still relatively dark, it smelled like a dream.
My first thought was, "Wow, cinnamon-vanilla-jade-country breeze-sunshine morning sure smells great," and then my second thought was, "What are we going to eat?"
Just a couple of days earlier I had stocked the freezer full of microwave dinners and red, white and blue popsicles, neither of which seemed appealing or possible at the moment.
So off we went to my neighborhood Applebee's. They had electricity and all-you-can eat riblets for $11.99. That kept us busy for about an hour.
With barbecue sauce crusted underneath our fingernails we headed back to the apartment with a mild sense of optimism about the power being restored. Our hopes grew as we saw televisions shining brightly from the condos across the street, but our faith was soon shattered when we pulled up to my light-less apartment building.
Carolina suggested we "turn on" the candles again and I corrected her by saying we should light them instead.
After cursing me out in her native Spanish, we turned on the candles.
Our loyal puppy Tony Pepito Fitzgerald began to whine so I let him out to share the darkness with us. It was starting to get a little chilly in the apartment so Carolina put Tony in his sweater vest. That dog loves to wear clothes so much that he began to sprint around the apartment, leaving a trail of little poo drops behind him.
With the scented candles working overtime and me cleaning up Tony's mess by flashlight, it was shaping up to be quite a night.
Now that the carpet was cleaned, Carolina and I didn't know what to do with ourselves. We felt like we needed to know what was going on in the outside world but had no way to access any news. I suggested we put some batteries in a radio and listen for a weather report, only to find out we didn't have any batteries or a radio that would run on them anyway.
"I guess we'll have to talk to each other," Carolina said without even trying to hide her disappointment.
It's really hard to make small-talk with someone you've spent every possible moment with for the last four years, but we gave it our best shot.
"Boy, it's nasty outside."
"Yep. It's really bad."
"Can you believe that Indiana-Maryland game?"
"We should eat those Rocket popsicles before they melt."
So with freezing rain outside we attempted to save our frozen treats by eating them. The first two were pretty good, but the third one was just cold.
With purplish-blue lips, Carolina said, "I wish we could have a hot drink now."
Realizing that I could be her hero forever if I could somehow manage to make a hot drink without power, I started my mission. I gathered four of the candles as my heat source, put a cup full of water in the tea kettle and rested the kettle on top of the candles' glass containers. It took seven seconds before the kettle had cut off all oxygen to the candles and they extinguished.
"Let's play Scrabble," I offered in consolation.
We did a People Magazine crossword puzzle instead and it took about nine minutes.
It was 8:30 p.m. but it felt like midnight. As the holder of a psychology degree, Carolina loves to play "free-association" with me to undercover my secret neurosis, but what she finds instead is my knack for rhyming.
She started with "Ice."
"Nice," I said quickly.
"Sugar," she responded.
"Booger."
"Let's do something else."
It went on like that for a while, a long while...