I was mortified when I realized that this particular incident happened over 20 years ago! Aside from that, it's a great memory.
At the time of this "CAT"-astrophe, we owned a miniature Dachshund named "Boner". We also had a cat named "Kirby". We didn't own the cat. He allowed us the privilege of housing and feeding him.
Kirby and Boner were great friends. They'd grown up together.
One winter night while we were all in the living room watching television, Kirby and Boner start chasing each other from room to room. The dog chased the cat into the rooms, the cat chased the dog out of the rooms. At this point I should mention that Kirby was a long haired cat. He looked a lot like Sylvester, the arch nemesis of Tweety Bird.
In the living room we had one of those square type kerosene heaters. The one pictured is a lot newer, but resembles it in many ways. As you can see, there is very little between you and the flame!
So, back to the chase. On one of their last passes through the living room, Kirby gets to close to the heater and his tail catches on fire. The tail is so fluffy he doesn't realize it's ablaze.
My oldest daughter is horrified at the sight of her cats' tail burning but can't seem to move. She starts begging me to to do something but I'm laughing so hard I can't get out of my chair! Luckily for the cat his tail went out on it's own fairly quickly. Just the ends of the fluff were singed.
