The Toaster Conspiracy

It's personal, I know it is!

My toaster has two settings: “pale and slightly damp” or “volcanic ash.”

There’s no middle ground.

The dial suggests there should be. It’s numbered from one to six, implying some kind of graduated scale of toastiness.

But this is a lie. A cruel, bread-based deception.

Trust me, I’ve tried every position on that dial.

I’ve done the experiments, even kept notes.

Setting three should, as far as I can tell, produce golden-brown toast.

Instead it produces something that looks like it’s been threatened with heat but not actually exposed to it.

So I turn it up to four. Now we’re cooking (pun intended) four is the answer.

Nope four is definitely not the answer.

Four is a war crime.

Four is toast that comes out smoking, blackened beyond recognition, setting off the smoke alarm at 7:30 in the morning while I’m still groggy from my usual restless sleep and trying to have a quiet breakfast.

I’ve started approaching the toaster like it’s a negotiation. I’ll set it to 3.5. Right between the markings, splitting the difference.

Surely this is reasonable. Surely the toaster will meet me halfway.

Of course not, not even close. Despite my mental pleading, the toaster doesn’t meet me halfway.

The toaster laughs at my optimism and produces something that’s somehow both pale AND burnt. I don’t know how this is physically possible, but the toaster produced it.

I mentioned this to my son. He said in his usual exasperated tone, “Just watch it and take it out when it’s done, dad!”

But that defeats the entire purpose of having a toaster. If I’m going to stand there watching bread cook, I might as well use the grill.

The toaster’s job - its ONE job - is to simply produce consistent results so I can go do something else.

Make coffee. Check my phone. Do it’s job without supervision.

Instead, I’ve become a bread babysitter.

I stand there now, hovering, ready to intervene the second I smell even a hint of browning.

The toaster knows I’m watching. I swear it adjusts its timing just to mess with me.

Yesterday it popped up early, bread still as pale as a British tourist on day one of their holiday, clearly mocking me.

This morning it held onto the toast for an extra fifteen seconds just to see if I’d crack.

It’s personal, I know it is!

There’s no other explanation. I treat this toaster well. I empty the crumb tray semi-regularly. I don’t shove bagels in there even though the slots are technically wide enough.

I’ve been a good owner.

And this is how it repays me. With psychological warfare at breakfast time.

I looked up reviews for this model online. Five stars. Hundreds of people raving about it. “Perfect toast every time!” they say. “So reliable!” they brag on.

Either they’re all lying, or I’ve somehow been assigned the one rogue toaster that escaped quality control and has decided to personally make my mornings a disaster.

I’m starting to think I need to replace it. But here’s the problem: I’ve had three toasters in my life, and they’ve all been like this. Different brands, different price points, same result.

Which means either:

A) I’m cursed

B) All toasters are secretly terrible and we’ve all just accepted this

C) There’s a design flaw in the entire concept of automated bread-browning that nobody wants to acknowledge

I’m leaning toward A.

Or could it be C) and we’ve all just normalised appliance incompetence.

We’ve accepted that toasters are going to betray us, and we’ve built our morning routines around compensating for their failures.

Standing there. Watching. Waiting. Hands poised ready to Intervene.

This morning I made toast. Set it to four. Watched it like a bomb disposal expert. Caught it at exactly the right moment.

It was perfect.

Golden brown. Crispy edges. Warm all the way through.

I felt an absurd surge of pride.

Then I realised: I’ve been reduced to celebrating the fact that my kitchen appliance did the one thing it was designed to do.

Tomorrow I’m buying a toaster with a window in it. Maybe if I can see what’s happening, I’ll feel more in control.