I’m a working mom. In a perfect world I get up at 5 am, get ready for work, have a blissful 10 minutes of quiet “me-time,” and wake my precious family up to the smell of bacon and eggs at about 6 am. My men (big and little) are out the door by 10 minutes to 7 and the Ladybug and I have another hour to get ready for school, clean up the kitchen, and do the morning chores before leaving at 8. The whole scenario works like magic–we know, we’ve done it.
Of course, in our world this happens about once a week. Ok, ok, maybe an average of once a week, not once every week. Because the down side to this scenario is that the magic wears off 4-6 cups of coffee later.
Which brings me to my toaster…
You didn’t see that coming, did you?
As a frantic working mom, I love my toaster. I adore my toaster. Excluding that one brilliant day each week in Perfectville, this little kitchen workhorse and I crank out whole-grain toast, 90 calorie waffles, and everything-but-the-kitchen-sink bagels together at alarming rates. (In case you’re impressed by that, just know that my kids like their Pop-Tarts cold).
Until this past Sunday.
While making our weekend breakfast (bump our magic scenario back an hour and skip the work/school component and voila!–back in Perfectville!) I threw my bread in, pushed the lever down and moved back to the stove. Only to come back to…bread. Ok.
I pushed it down again, the lever popped back up.
Down, up, down, up, down, up…
I won’t embarrass myself further by admitting how many times I actually tried this pointless exercise. Suffice it to say that slamming the lever up and down didn’t make a different. Slamming it down and manually holding it in place didn’t either. And flipping it over and shaking it vigorously and then slamming it down didn’t either.
So I did what any other busy woman would do…I threw a pan of biscuit in the oven and moved on with life.
Come Monday morning I discovered that time may “heal all wounds” for people, but not for malfunctioning toasters. “Let sleeping dogs lie” is only applicable if they’re actually sleeping. If they’re dead, you should probably go ahead and dispose of them instead of shoving them to the back of the counter and pretending you don’t know anything about it until someone asks.
I hate my toaster. I loathe my toaster. Frozen waffles never get pleasantly crisp in the microwave. Just ask our middle son–the waffle connoisseur. Soggy microwave waffles practically bring the poor guy to tears. Of course, the thought of making fresh, waffle-iron waffles every morning definitely brings me to tears. Hello 4:45 am.
Enter Mr. Fix-it. He only popped it down twice before getting out the screwdriver.
Ever seen your toaster’s guts before?
If you have, then you probably know what I now know–toasters are so amazingly simple that when they’re broken, they’re just broken. There’s nothing to fix.
So if you have any toaster-buying recommendations, our waffle-aholic here asks you to share them…
…’cause a growing boy can’t survive on cereal and soggy waffles for long.
