Thursday, February 16, 2006

Did Somebody Slip My Toaster Some Viagra?

Despite my grumblings about it, I've been doing pretty good on the "healthy eating" thing. I'm not calling it a diet, because diets are temporary, and this is supposed to be a lifestyle change. I've lost at least a pound or two consistantly every week except last week, when I went up a pound. But, you know, birthday cake was involved, and I can't be expected to pass up birthday cake, right? Especially homemade birthday cake. Chocolate. Still warm from the oven.

Anyway, I have an elderly toaster. Really, it's only about four years old, but in toaster-years that's around 92. It's harder to tell when toasters have reached their geratric years...There's none of the obvious aging signs like constant misplacing of the car keys and false teeth, or a large number of prescription bottles mixed in with the prunes and bran cereal in what used to be the "snack drawer." With toasters you have to look for the more subtle clues, like a gradual increase in the time it takes to toast a piece of bread. For some time now, anything placed in my toaster and set to "dark" takes at least three "toast cycles" to aquire a medium-brown shade.

Yesterday, instead of my usual one-serving of oatmeal (which equals about three tablespoons), I decided to have English muffin bread with some I-Can't-Believe-They-Really-Think-I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Butter. So I set the toaster to dark and headed off to plant myself in front of the computer for my daily Catch-Up-On-Everyone's-Blog time. When the toaster beeped, I went in the kitchen and hit the toast button again, without examining the contents. This was a Mistake. I had very dark toast for breakfast yesterday morning.

Today, I really should have had the oatmeal. I know this. But see, we bought Portuguese rolls at the grocery store last night, and I love Portuguese rolls. And they go stale so quickly (well, that's what I've heard anyway...Really they've never hung around long enough in this house to test the theroy). I'm sure my mother's ducks would enjoy the rolls if they went stale, but that would be such a waste. So, I opted to forgo the oatmeal another day, and have a toasted Portuguese roll, with some more of that delicious fake-yellow 60% vegetable oil spread (yum).

So once again, I set the dial to "dark" and left the room. Never let it be said that I don't learn from my mistakes, though, because today when the toaster beeped instead of hitting the button a second time I opened the door to check the color. Yes, I know toasters usually have see-through glass doors, but the doors on four-year-old toasters that have only been cleaned twice are usually not so see-through. Anyway, the Portuguese roll? Was black. Very black. Either my toaster has re-discovered its youth, or it's punishing me for not eating healthy. Either way, it's on its way out. It's enough to have a critical husband...I do NOT need a toaster chiding me for choosing bread over oatmeal. I mean, it's not like I was having birthday cake for breakfast. Homemade birthday cake. Chocolate. Still warm from the oven.

I ate the Portuguese roll anyway. I could have given it to my mother's ducks, but that would have been such a waste...

Oh, and speaking of my mother, she just started her own blog. Check out the River Witch whenever you get a chance!

Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 7:49 AM :: 12 Comments:

View Comments

---------------------------------------