Monday, April 28, 2003

TOASTER RAGE

During breakfast, the cafeteria at my work rolls out a big industrial-sized toaster. You place your toastable items on a conveyer-belt, they disappear into the toaster, and then slide down a chute onto a big tray below the convey-belt when they are done toasting. What nobody seems to realize about this toaster is that it is equipped with a big black knob that says "speed control." One morning I was standing with some guy as we waited for our items to toast and he's getting all impatient, saying how long the toaster takes. I told him he could adjust the speed, and he's like oh, well, I'd rather just wait blah blah blah. Well, don't make small talk with me about how long the toaster takes then! Just this morning some woman was frantically peering into the toaster, smoke wafting out, saying "oh no! it's burning!" "Make it go faster!" I said "How do you do that?!!?" she asked, all panicked. So I turned the knob to high speed and her nearly charred English muffin came sliding out the bottom. "OH....I didn't know you could do that," she said. "I don't think anybody knows you can do that. Everyone stands there watching their stuff burn," I said, which maybe was a little mean, but whatever. I want to make a documentary about the toaster dynamics at work.

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