Toasters (And the girl who catches them on fire.)

Last night, during an extremely boring shift at work, I found myself contemplating what I should write about in here.  As with anything, I had many ideas in mind for this space up until it was actually created.  My mind was blank, until I was in the car this morning, on my way home.

My bestest friend, Kara, and I stopped at Mac Daddy D's (McDonald's for all you not in the know) and got breakfast.  Halfway through her McMuffin, she turns to me and asks, "How do you burn an english muffin?"

"Well," I began, giving her the look I often do when she asks stupid questions like that.

Thus, inspiration hit me smack in the head, much like a V8 commercial.

We have an industrial toaster where I work.  You know, the kind that the toast kind of rolls through, instead of just sitting in one spot warming up.  It's nice in one respect (and one only), you can fit nearly a whole loaf of bread in this thing at once.  But, this stupid toaster has a mind of it's own.  You can put two pieces of white bread in at the same time and on the same setting, and you'll get out two pieces of toast - one of which is burnt to a crisp.

Also, the toaster has it out for me.  Seriously.

When I first started working at the Seneca Cafe, a year and a half ago, the toaster and I got along.  Sure, every once in a great while, I'd get a piece of raisin toast stuck in the back and burn my hand pulling it out.  Well, after cussing the toaster out for the third time, it's decided that I'm public enemy number one and I must  be destroyed.

Example 1: I was minding my own business, making white toast for a customer, when the toaster started to crackle.  Toasters aren't supposed to crackle.  I run over to see what the hell is going on, and sure enough, the stupid thing is on fire, again.  I tried to pull the crumb tray out, hoping that'll cause the toaster to get it's act together.

Normally, this works.  

Not today though, no.  The actual heating element of the toaster had decided it was sick of just sitting there, burning my toast all day.  No, it wanted to go on the same fun ride that the toast went on.  Then, the heating element managed to get stuck in the conveyer belt.

I had no idea what the hell to do.  So I did what I do best.  I yelled "fire" a few times.  We work in a kitchen, this should have people running.  The cooks stood there and stared at me like I had three heads.  After the fourth time of yelling it, the sous chef, Chanin, came running from the other end of the kitchen.  

She tried turning it off, but the thing kept crackling.  So, she ended up unplugging the toaster.  With an amused look on her face, she asks me, "How do you manage to break things without even really touching them?"

The fire caused the toaster to be taken away for a whole week.  To make up for the missing toaster, maintenance brought us two normal, push down toasters.  It was the best week of my life.

Stay tuned for Example 2.