To toast or not to toast... That is the question.
I am not afraid to poke fun at myself, here is a story for you.
It appears that I have a toaster dysfunction. This is mainly true with the toaster at work. That thing seems to be designed just to mess with me. Part of my daily morning work ritual is to get some coffee from the kitchen, and while I am there, toast some Pop-Tarts. Pop-Tarts are easy to make. Unless, it is with the industrial unit our company purchased. It never fails that they would burn, and not only that, the pop-tarts would fall into the unit when it trips. I’d have to flip the toaster over to get them out. Plop they go onto the counter, along with the crumbs of dozens of employee toastings. I eventually found a workaround for the latter problem by propping the pop-tarts against the back wall of the unit. That stopped them from falling in. The burning issue however, continued. I tried different settings and I didn’t seem to get much of a change. Ultimately, I resorted to hovering over the toaster to make sure it didn’t get too dark. This is a hit or miss process because I get distracted by others in the kitchen that are yapping with me. After several months of this, a coworker, (Carol), was tired of my plight. She looks at the darkness setting and says, “You dumb ###. It’s because you have it set too high!” Dumfounded, I tell her that I have it set to medium. She checks it and says no you don’t. That is the dark setting. Doh! On this stupid toaster, the middle position is dark. Well, that explains the burning problem. I never bring my readers to the kitchen, so there was no way that I’d see that. Heck—I didn’t even know they had markings on it. Shaking my head.
Fast forward to this morning. I am in kitchen getting coffee and I drop some bagels in the toaster. Carol is there with me when another coworker (Peter) from IT comes in. Carol LOVES to rip on me, so she tells Peter about my toaster dysfunction. They are having a good ole time, and I laugh with them. To my chagrin Peter says, “So… he has problems with toasters. Like right now? The toaster is not even plugged in.” I look---and sure enough… someone unplugged the dang thing. I did not see that one coming. #@$@#$@#
Carol walks away for a minute… and I am talking with Peter. After a bit, Peter goes, “are you sure the toaster is even pushed down.” I’m thinking… of course…what kind of an idiot do you think I am. I say, “Yeah, I pushed it. He says, “I don’t think it is.” So I try it. Son of a beep!!! Because it was unplugged, it didn’t lock. Ugh…
Carol comes back in and Peter is quick to tell Carol about my latest plight. I am still reeling from all of this when Peter goes… “are you checking it?” Again, I am thinking, what kind of an idiot do you think I am. I say “no,” but, just in case, I had better look. It is hard to see into this monstrosity, but it did seem to be browning. To eliminate anymore fodder for these two, I decided that I had better not take a chance by burning them. So... I trip the toaster. Oh but wait, now the bagels are stuck in the darn thing. I take a plastic fork out of the drawer and start digging, and digging, and digging. Meanwhile, Peter and Carol are laughing at me. Finally, in exasperation, I push the handle down some and push it up fast in an attempt to move them up. What happens? They both fly out and land on the counter. Carol was nearly on the floor laughing. Sigh…
That darn toaster may be the death of me.