Do you want that ultra-roasted?

Winter deposits me in the house, secluded from annoying neighbors, but surrounded by the everyday friends/enemies of our lives--otherwise known as appliances.  I swear they know they've got me cornered, and they are taking full advantage of their chance to aggravate me.

While the weather is nice, it is easy to ignore the bad ones, but winter has me facing my foes--those appliances that I hate.  They just seem extra-annoying when it's just me, my coffee and them on a Saturday morning.  There is nowhere to run, I have to face my demons, even if they are made of stainless steel and plastic.

My toaster oven insists on burning my toast, right in front of my face every weekend. It taunts me--making me turn this dial and that one, cranking the timer that you can never set for an actual "time" like 30 seconds or a minute.  This metal man is more random with the likes of 28 seconds or 1 minute 32 seconds. And there are no real numbers on the dial--it's sort of like spinning the roulette wheel of cooking. Will it cook? Will it burn? Stay tuned to find out!! Arrrgggghhhh.

I swear the damn thing snickers as I stand there, watching the glow of my toast, lightly browning.  It takes forever to brown,  so I lose interest, and I walk away to do things like start the soapy water for dishes or fill my coffee cup.  It is then that it instantly goes from tan to an angry BURNT--in seconds.  Mere seconds! And it doesn't just blacken my toast--it has to go the whole distance with billowing smoke from the crumbs burning under the rack, the window on the door steams up, and it reeks the stench of a thousand pieces of burnt toast.  It's dramatic, this toaster oven.

If we had some sort of history together, or if the darned thing was old, I could understand. But it is not--we just bought it last year.  And while that thing whispered sweet promises in my ear as it sat on the shelf on the store, it lied. It lied about it's features. It lied about how efficient is is and how it is going to look so nice on my counter.  It lied about the great toast it was gonna make and how much I was gonna love it. It lied like a dog. And I bought those lies--in more ways than one.

I do not love you, Toaster Oven. I 'm hoping for a terrible kitchen accident to happen--say, maybe a little short circuit perhaps, or a tumble into the soapy dish water (unplugged, of course).  I dunno, just something to justify tossing this piece of conniving junk into the trash. Why we don't just cut our losses and get a new one, I don't know. Until it dies, I suffer. (I come from a long line of sufferers, so I do it well.)

And I eat black toast--all the while cursing the damn thing.