My office has an incinerating toilet. Very exciting contraption... sort of space age but created for pre-modern homes, cabins or offices that don't have plumbing. There are a few rather complicated instructions that go along with the toilet and it is of the UTMOST importance to do exactly what they say, since an incinerating toilet involves high temperatures capable of reducing the entire universe to ashes.

First, one must put a paper "toilet liner" in the bowl to contain all refuse. After depositing said refuse in the liner, one must turn, face the toilet and step on a small pedal near the floor. This will open the bowl from below and, with the aid of gravity, effectively drop the liner and contents into the small dormant incinerator below.

By releasing the pedal, the bowl will close, sealing off the universe from the impending incineratory event. Push a small black button on the back of the toilet and the incineration motor starts up. The bathroom begins to hum and I run.

There's just one more thing to note. The incinerating toilet can be used even while the incinerator is in operation. All one must do is follow the directions above, and note with some curiosity the red glow emitting from the incinerator below as the liner and contents drop to their fiery doom. Release the pedal, push the button and another 15 minutes is added to the one hour of incineration time.

Brilliant.

This is all very important information, as it will aid in your understanding of just how I came to set the toilet on fire.

One innocent day, I set the toilet on fire.

You see, the liner didn't drop down properly. It sort of slid sideways and dumped its contents. Supposedly this is a VERY BAD THING. Refuse MUST stay in the liner or it escapes the incinerator (which is not water tight) and leaks all over the floor. Who the heck designs a non-water tight toilet incinerator anyway?! They should be fired (ha.. fired.. incinerator.. haha).

As I waited for the impending disaster to appear on the floor, the liner was still stuck on the side of the bowl. Without its contents, it was just a silly piece of wax paper too light to be pulled down by gravity. I stepped on the pedal repeatedly, opening and closing the bowl, willing the liner to drop into the glowing lava red incinerator below.

Half of it is slid in. I stepped on the pedal again but the rest wouldn't budge.

At this point, large flames erupted out of the toilet.

I slammed the pedal up and down frantically looking around for anything I could use to push the flaming paper liner down into the toilet. There was nothing.

The future flashed before my eyes. I was standing in front of a charred heap of computers, telephones, fax machines, printers, coffee makers and microwaves. My co-workers were morbidly poking through the ashes looking for irreplaceable documents and pictures of their kids. The police came up to take my statement.

"Miss, can you describe for us exactly what happened here?"

Um... the toilet caught on fire?...

Back in reality, the liner had finally dropped into the toilet. I slammed the bowl shut and stood stunned for a moment. I blinked. The flames were gone and the incinerator was humming innocently. I quickly looked around to see if a flood had appeared on the floor. It hadn't and so I took my usual opportunity and ran.