This Week in the News

Americans re-elect President Obama. Head of CIA resigns amidst scandal. Worley family buys a new toaster. That’s right, after 10 years of burnt toast, burnt English muffins and burnt bagels, our $14 two-slot toaster finally bit the dust. Two slots?? For a family of 10 who loves bread?! Impossible.

The next day, I offhandedly mentioned to Mick I would pick one up while I was at Wal-Mart. “No! Not another Wal-Mart toaster! I’ll order one from Amazon.” So, I took him up on that offer. It was a task I knew he would take on with relish, carefully scrutinizing every available make, model, spec and review.

And I should’ve known – should not have been surprised -- when 2 days later, a giant 1 1/2 by 2 1/2 foot box was delivered by UPS. I was upstairs when Courtney breathlessly burst into the bedroom with several of the younger ones hot on her heels. She was holding on to the gigantic box while trying to keep the bedroom door shut with her foot while they pushed on the door. She (and they) just knew it was some fabulous Christmas gift for someone. As soon as I saw it, I knew. 

“It’s a toaster.”

“A toaster?! No, it can’t be a toaster. The box is way too big!”

“It’s a toaster.”

She wasn’t convinced. I told her she could let the others in and we opened the box and found the biggest, shiniest, most button-y toaster I’d ever seen (cue heavenly choir singing and light shining down):

Digital display with progress bar, buttons for defrosting, reheating and keeping warm – yes, keeping toast warm -- and a very special button for bagels (why do bagels rate their own button, I wonder?). I didn’t know if we should put it in the cabinet or christen it. Which brought up a good question: would it fit in the cabinet? As sleek and lovely as it is, I didn’t really fancy something that mammoth sitting on the counter, staring at me all the time (is it just me or do those big buttons look like eyes). Amazingly, it actually just fit inside the cabinet in the same spot where our last, lowly toaster sat. We had to take everything off the shelf to get it to fit, but it did fit!

It has quickly become the main attraction at mealtime these past 2 days. Yesterday, Brooke requested stromboli and toast for lunch. “You want toast with your stromboli?” (Our version of Stromboli is basically a fancy ham and cheese sandwich). So different ones gathered around and watched while the toaster did its thing. Bread was gently lowered into the chamber, the metal burner units slowly surrounded the bread and the digital progress bar kept us constantly informed as to how much longer we had to wait for toast perfection. Finally, the contraption slowly raised up the toast – all we needed was a drum roll to complete the scene. Aaaaaaannd … It was toast. :-) But the important thing was: it wasn’t burnt!

This morning, we’re really going to put it the test:  bagels! We may have to break in again later for an update on that. Now back to your regularly-scheduled lives.