“The Day My Toaster Died!“
I reluctantly walked over to my “Comfy Chair” for my post-breakfast nap. I was feeling a little down, down, indeed unfortunate!
For the first time in over ten years, I could not have toast with my eggs, our toaster quit working, no there was no airplane crash, that took out my toaster it just died. I tried the usual remedies, push the reset on the outlet, turn the toaster over and shake, try a different outlet on another circuit. Nope, the toaster had definitely passed on to an alternative existence. Today is the day my toaster died! And I sang Bye bye miss American pie, Drove my Chevy-Well I thought of singing it!
Fixing appliances when I was growing up was no big deal, you would take it into the small appliance repair shop on the corner, or a short drive to town and get a ticket with a pick-up date on it, and sure enough when you went to retrieve it, it was fixed and at a minimal price. Back then, a new toaster would cost ten bucks, and you could fix it for $2.50. It would then work for another 10 years.
But today alas, the appliance repair shops are gone along with most of the shoe repair shops, television repair shops. We live in a disposable society.
You cannot find a toaster for sale in my small town unless you luck out at a garage sale. I checked online and found that there are lots of toasters for purchase 50 or more, but none of them exceeded a 4-star rating. I read the reviews, and every one of them had one problem or the other: “Toasts unevenly, one side always burns, toasts with a pattern, won’t take artesian bread,” whatever that is. “Only toasts bagels on one side.” “Sent it back three times till I got one that worked,” sending it back once would have been enough for me.
There are so many toasters on the market that I just cannot decide on which one to by. Then I remembered that in the basement where I keep the camping tent and supplies, even though we have not gone camping in the last 20 years, we kept our camping toaster. It was dented on one side, and the handle on the push-down lever was gone, but it did work.
I brought it upstairs, dusted it off, and cleaned the crumb tray from our last camping excursion; the crumbs were a little stuck on the tray. I then plugged it in, used a potholder to put my toast down so I would not cut my finger in the exposed metal lever, and in a few moments, I had my toast.
Life is good once again, so I wandered into the family room, settled into my “Comfy Chair” pulled up a throw blanked and when I was as “warm as toast” fell soundly asleep.
“Remember, every day is a gift! Some are just a little more fun to open than others. – © Joel M. Vernier 9/30/2019 Author of: “The Guinea Pig In The Freezer.” joelmvernier@aol.com
