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Tough on toasters and coffee machines

In my house, we’re tough on toasters and coffee machines.

It seems as though sooner than later, we’re always in the market for one of the two must-have, can’t-live-without kitchen appliances.

Last week it was the toaster.

Suddenly – probably out of part abuse, part exhaustion – the toaster went kaput.

“Time for a new toaster,” Better Half announced with a steely calm after noticing one side of it had elements no longer heating up on command.

This was not exactly breaking news in the Kiaski household, since this is practically an annual tradition.

Some people have staples on their grocery lists that include eggs, milk, bread and butter.

Ours has toaster or coffee machine.

So it’s at our last “grocery store” shopping excursion – one where it’s always remarkably ironic how the total bill is really, really big yet includes next to no food – that we buy a toaster.

Picking one out brings us no joy, no sense of accomplishment, no sense of peace.

We stood there and stared at the selections, sighing and full of low expectations, hoping one would exhibit a sense of adventure and jump in our buggy, and we’d be done with it.

Better Half and I are just way too indecisive in most any aisle of appliances, big or small.

“Just get one,” Better Half finally said, his voice tinged with a hint of consumer frustration after examining some of the many models and glossing over some of the information on the boxes.

Not a real riveting read.

A toaster is a toaster is a toaster.

Eenie, meanie, miney, mo.

Rock, paper, scissors.

Better Half and I finally made our random toaster selection, the only requirement being that it would have four slice openings, not a mere two.

That way I have more areas to ruin.

I seriously had to refrain from making a Janice face at the checkout, where I was asked if I wanted the toaster purchase price to include a warranty, as if this is a big-ticket item or something.

Seriously?

Home we go with our new toaster where Better Half removed it from the box and placed it on the counter in the spot that the old toaster used to call home.

“What do you want me to do with it?” he asked. “Save it?”

I shook my head, in the negative. Be gone with it.

We gazed at the new toaster all sparkly and shiny, so fresh and full of toasting potential, looking as if it belonged in a demo kitchen.

“Oh, you poor thing, you,” I thought to myself. “You’re doomed. You’ll never make it to a yard sale.”

Of course, I promised and pledged the usual, that I do hereby solemnly swear not to make cheesy garlic toast in the toaster, not to insert any extra jumbo sized Texas toast in there.

But I know better.

Welcome to the Kiaski kitchen, I told it.

Enjoy your stay, be it ever so brief.

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