Above Image: Lasted Forever (Which is a Terrible Business Model)

(SNN) - My parents were given a two-slice toaster as a wedding present. It was made of wrought iron and reinforced concrete and toasted bread, muffins, Parker House rolls, ladyfingers, kiddyfingers, Bigfootfingers, bread sticks, fish sticks, Pickup Stix, Pop Tarts, Popsicles, your Pop’s mittens, even an emaciated chicken when the stove went on the Fritz. It did so for 40+ years without complaints, with no alarming smells, and zero visits to the fixit guy on the corner who has since been replaced by a Starbucks.

My wife and I have just replaced our most recent toaster, purchased two years ago. Two years is the average lifespan of a toaster these days; ours announces it’s time for a new one by bursting into flame. The most recent two-slicer only toasted 2½ sides at the end and only if you read it “The Brave Little Toaster” while it worked. We called it the “Popemaker” because it billowed white smoke when the toast was ready. Dark smoke meant crispy critters.  No smoke meant “you forgot to plug me in, dumbass.”

Our latest replacement is made of cheap plastics, space age polymers and laser-based strobe lights. It has a warning label reading: “Caution: Do not operate during Monsoon Season or while bathing.” It has an automatic sensor that will fire your toast across the room when it reaches the darkness level you chose, as long as the darkness level you chose was “barely singed.”   

Like so many new technological products, it comes with the unnecessary bells and whistles. This includes bells and whistles, GPS, an AM/FM clock radio, toenail trimmer and a Salad Shooter.  

Yet it cannot determine what it is supposed to toast on its own. You must first select one of four settings: “Bread,” “Not Bread,” “Processed White Flour Crap that will Kill You” and “None of your damn business.”

This new toaster can also re-heat cold toast. I don’t like cold toast. I don’t like reheated cold toast either. I know there are starving people who would kill for a piece of cold toast. I am not insensitive to their plight. In fact, I mail them my leftover cold toast every Saturday. 

But toast is not Lasagna. It does not improve with reheating. Call me profligate—and you wouldn't be the first—but I'll fire up new toast rather than reheat the old. 

And yes, I know, it's probably why they hate us.

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Unaltered Photo: Some Right Reserved by Tom Hart flickr photostream, The Sage nor this article endorsed. The original image can be found here.