toaster stories

Ben sent me this toaster story and it's solid gold. If you have more toaster stories I'd love to hear them! (I'm also interested in hijinks stories. Like all men, I am always interested in hijinks stories.)

Here's the story:

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Oh man, i have the funniest toaster story to tell.
so just like you, i am a man who enjoys his toast, and
would much rather receive it from the lips of
something chrome or cool.

so when i was younger (the summer of second year
university) i had the chance to steal away my
grandfather's old chrome toaster from where it was
hiding in our cabin in the middle of nowhere, and so i
got myself a rad toaster. Implicit with inheriting the
toaster, however, was the understanding that i would
FIX the heavy chrome beast. see, It had one of those
"how well done do you want your toast" knobs, but it
was a little... testy. Of the 360 degrees a person
could turn the knob, turning it to 0 degrees gave
undone toast, turning it to 1 degree gave welldone
toast, 2 degrees gave black toast, 3 degrees gave
black toast and 5 minutes of fire, 10 degrees gave a
house burnt down, and 11 degrees was a setting we
could call "lecture from the fire chief and
disappointed looks from architects and insurancemen
alike".

but this toaster was cool, buddy. reallllll cool.
heavy chrome body. it had 2 slots, and no lever. it
would AUTO LOAD. you'd drop the floppy toast in hard
enough, and they'd just slide down in a way which was
so smooth that it was counterintuitive. damn.

anyway, so i was taking a math course at 8:30 am, and
i woke up late as usual. i lived in this tall
residence apartment tower (called Gauge apartments).
full of students. students i resented because they got
to sleep in. it was 19 stories high, and really worth
stayin' in if you can ever manage it... they rent it
as a hotel in the summer.

anyway, i had long sinced "fixed" the toaster, by
magically hitting it in just the right way that it
gave passable toast... and had been doing so for a
couple months already. so while based on the setup,
you might already have guessed what happeend, it was
quite a shock to me. anyway, somehow the little knob
had gotten turned, and slipped from it's singular
"make toast" position, and had somehow ended up at...
somewhere between "smoke machine" and "lecture from
the fire chief".

so i roll out of bed, and decide that toast is what
the doctor ordered, and that i'd throw the toast into
the chrome kingmaker while i showered and shaved. and
that's what i do.

now i am a gentleman who wears glasses, so i am used
to the world getting a little... smokey when i remove
them. also, i had just taken a hot shower. thus, as i
wandered about the bathroom without my spectacles, it
was not surprising that i could not see very far. the
smell of burning toast was imperceptible. It was a
little confusing to see that the layer of smog
remained as i left the washroom, and even more
confusing when it remained after i put on my glasses.

and it took a moment before i put the pieces together,
and dashed out to the kitchen.

imagine niagra falls.
imagine looking at niagra falls upside down.
imagine looking at niagra falls upside down, only
instead of water, it's smoke and coming out of a
beautiful chrome toaster.

so i swore.

there was no lever, so no way to pull the toast out of
the wretched machine, other than to unplug it, twiddle
the knob, and flick it the bird. the blackened, toast
shaped pieces of carbon rose slowly and dramatically
and lazily, like the sun.

i had to cover my tracks.
i wasn't on hugging terms with my roommates, and
surely it would be easier on me if the smell of burnt
toast was a mystery to them.
of course,
i misjudged the volume of smoke that i was dealing
with...

I opened the window, and hid the carbon in the garbage
can in my private locked bedroom, and opened another
window, put the chrome beast back into the cupboard
and sighed.
and then the fire alarm went off.
the fire alarm for the ENTIRE APARTMENT BUILDING.

my roomates awoke, and one ran out to the window and
declared that there must be a fire, and that it must
be above us, based on how smoke was pouring into our
apartment from the windows above us.
another looked down the fire-escape stairwell, and saw
that it was full-up of smoke, and one could hardly see
their way through it.

Similar panic occurred throughout the building, since
one could, wherever one was apparently, see the
evidence that the building was on fire.

I acted confused and surprised, and then i went to
class, passing many bleary eyed people in the pyjamas
standing in the street (heh...)

I did not come back until evening.

the building was abuzz with wondering as to where all
the smoke had come from. the fire chief had spent all
afternoon walking up and down the stairs trying to
find the source of all the smoke.

and when i told my roomates, they laughed at me.
real hard.
and made their friends laugh at me.

and that's why fancy modern toasters are pretty good.

bn