Flaming Lunches

The following true story gives further reasoning for my moving back into res.

For most of my second year at UBC I lived with three guys in a small house in south Vancouver. One day I brought home a doggy bag of leftover lunch from Earls.

Incompetent as I am, I usually stick to the kettle and the toaster oven when using the kitchen. I judged the cardboard box to have about 2 inches clearance on each side when placed in the toaster oven. Also, since it was slighly soggy, I figured it would be ok in there for a few minutes. So I popped it in and went to the living room to watch King of the Hill.

Shortly before the first commercial break, I noticed the air in the living room was slightly black and hard to breathe. I ran to the kitchen and found the toaster oven in flames. Let me clarify: The flames weren't just inside the toaster oven; they were coming out the edges of the door and the vents on top. I quickly unplugged it and grabbed some oven mitts. Holding the flaming oven at arms length, I ran out the back door onto the balcony. I put it down on the table and used a screwdriver to open the door (the handle had broken off a while ago). I stabbed the screwdriver into the flaming lunch and flung it out onto the lawn.

Unfortunately, the night before, some racoons had gotten into the garbage and strewn it around the backyard, along with our large collection of beer cans. When I flung my flaming lunch onto the lawn, some of the garbage caught fire too. So I quickly put on my shoes and ran to stomp it out. I put out most of it with my feet, then used the hose to finish it off. After thoroughly spraying down the pile of burnt garbage and kicking it under a bush, I looked up to see my neighbour staring at me from his window. I waved, then went back inside to finish watching King of the Hill.