And Yet Still More Random Thoughts
December 12, 2001

Toasters

When you think about it, the toaster is an amazing invention. You put in a piece of bread and it gets toasted. You spread something on it and it tastes good. And then you eat it. What could be simpler?

And you can do so much with toast. Toast is great. There's jelly toast and cinnamon toast. The thing is, when folks get mad they always say "You're toast!" which is supposed to be bad, but if you think about it, it should be a good thing.

"You're toast!"
"I am? Thanks! I love toast."

On the other hand, when folks really like something, they always say "the greatest thing since sliced bread," which when you think about it, is really saying something. Being able to buy bread that's already sliced is awesome. Because bread that you buy in the stores is soft, and slicing it yourself would be really difficult. We live in a world where you can go to the store and buy soft sliced bread, which, while amazing, isn't quite the same thing as toast. But it is the main ingredient.

The thing about the toaster is it's simplicity. I don't know who invented it, but I can't imagine it was too long after someone first thought up electricity. I mean, first you have electricity, and the first thing you would think up is the light bulb, and then (naturally) the toaster.

If an unfrozen caveman came to my house and I had to explain all my appliances to him, I would start with the toaster. In fact, that and the oven are probably the only things he would even understand. Unfrozen caveman wouldn't get the car or the TV or the computer. I mean, he might understand what they did, but he would only think they worked because of Great Big Spirit.

Unfrozen Caveman
Tries To Understand Modern Life

Unfrozen Caveman: What this?

Me: This, my friend, is a '91 Honda Civic. Granted, not the flashiest car around, but it runs like a clock.

Unfrozen Caveman: What Honda Civic do?

Me: Well, you get in it and it takes you places. By your standards, this is a very fast and effective mode of transport.

Unfrozen Caveman: How work?

Me: Well, you put gasoline in it. The gasoline is ignited and the engine converts thermal energy to kinetic energy, thereby....

Unfrozen Caveman: *grunt* What gasoline is? What ignite mean?

Me: Gasoline is, um, fuel. Ignite means to burn.

Unfrozen Caveman: BURN!!! Fire Spirt make Honda Civic go!

Me: Not exactly, it...

Unfrozen Caveman: What this?

Me: That's a dryer. You put your clothes in it and they get dry by means of electrical....um, Fire Spirit.

Unfrozen Caveman: What this?

Me: A refrigerator. It, um.....chases away Fire Spirit. And that next one is a toaster, it....well, it involves bread and Fire Spirit, it's kind of complicated, actually...

gandhi.jpg

For cavemen, eventually, everything would come down to Fire Spirit. It's what they understand, and how they make sense of the world.

Cars are very complex and have lots of parts called distributors and converters and manifolds. People can know all about cars and how they work and even all the physics of gasoline and combustion and all that. I find this odd because it's not cool to be smart about anything else. For instance, in no other circumstance can I imagine a teenager using the word "torque" in a sentence. But put them in a garage, and it's cool. (NOTE: It's also cool to know sports statistics).

There are no toaster enthusiasts. It's not cool to talk about coil wattage, and to have a girl come over while you've got toaster parts all over the kitchen table, and say things like "Hand me that racket-head there, babe. By this time tomorrow we'll be having corned beef on a nice golden-brown rye!" And then she'll say something like "Did you check the tensile strength on the left thermal inducer?" and he's all "Wow! You know about toasters?" and she's like "I have three brothers, hotshot, and they're all toast-heads like you."

It's just not cool to know about toasters. Unless you're that Tool-Man guy on TV, and then it's funny. Or stupid, depending on your point of view.

One of the reasons toasters get a bad rap, though, is because, unlike most other major appliances, they have a very limited function. That is, they make toast. An oven or stove will cook anything, but toasters just make toast. Well, they make Pop-Tarts too, but I'm not counting them because they were made specifically for the toaster; it's not like someone invented the Pop-Tart and then said "Hey, I bet these would go great in the toaster!" Anyway, the point is, toasters have such a limited function, it's kind of weird, like having a tiny little washing machine just for socks.

If all of our appliances came to life and were suddenly aware of their surroundings, I think the toaster would be the most pissed off. They work so hard and hardly ever get recognition for it. Now that I think about it, most appliances would be pissed off. None of them are considered "cool".

Lawnmowers would be pissed off, especially the non-riding kind. A guy will spend months and years working on cars but will trash a mower for no reason at all, and basically they have the same type engine.

Toasters definitely don't get enough credit, and the guy who invented the toaster isn't even mentioned in history books. We know about Edison and Marconi and Bell, but no one knows the Toaster Dude.

I'm not advocating a National Toaster Day or anything. There probably already is one anyway, just no one knows about it except morning radio DJs and David Letterman. I'm not even saying we should have toaster moinuments or anything. I'm just saying we should appreciate the things that we have, even the little things, and be happy for them.

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