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Ricky Ginsburg - May 2019 |
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A number of foolish people think that a double latte vente with two squirts of tar and a shot of imported African rhino pee qualifies as breakfast. Of course, they also voted for Nixon and believe that a Beatles reunion is still a distant, yet plausible possibility. However, I'm here today to inform those of you nodding your heads in agreement to one or both of the preceding comments, that you are wrong. Unless you can properly toast a piece of bread for the morning meal - white, rye, whole wheat, or otherwise - you haven't a clue as to what a toaster truly does for your soul and what it can do, if you heed its message, to make sense of your marriage.
Before we begin, let's accept two facts as the basis for kitchen gadgets affecting marital bliss. First, and probably the most important concept a husband grasps after "Yes, dear," is that the only toaster that will work correctly in your kitchen is the one your wife finds, on sale, and purchases with a 20% off coupon. The make and model and whether or not it will accept two slices or four, with or without a bagel setting, are meaningless to the female shopper. You can spend, as I have, weeks gathering technical specifications for every toaster from the six-dollar Sears special of the week to the fifteen-thousand dollar Interceptor Xcaliber combination microwave, can-opener, back-scratcher, tire-inflator, and sixteen-slice toaster, but unless she picks it out, your studies have been for naught. The second concept you'll need to buy into as gospel, is that regardless of which toaster she selects, it won't last more than three months. We have a closet in our kitchen holding everything she's rejected that I refer to as the "failed appliance vault". I don't know for certain why we have four electric breadmakers. I do know that the average cost of the nine loaves of bread they have produced is around forty-two bucks a loaf. Considering that they were hacked into slices too thick to fit the Kitchen Marvel Toastette, the device du jour, a tuna fish sandwich, including the 89 cent can and a nickel's worth of mayo, cost me almost fifteen dollars. Of course, be not impressed by the four breadmakers. There are also three blenders, several electric can openers (most with knife sharpener attachments too dull to put an edge on plastic cutlery) and seventeen toasters. And while the blenders, all with burnt out motors, are being saved for their glass components, the unused toasters have been polished and reboxed in their original packing, complete with manuals. "Return them or give them away." I say to her occasionally. This is how the argument begins. I do my best to sound jovial with the opening salvo; something about honey and bees. It's a weak attempt at distraction. However, if my timing and tenor are on key, it will elicit a response of, "Your daughter could use a new one. Let's drive over there this weekend." My daughter has been producing offspring at a regular rate of one every fourteen months for the past six years. Her eldest son, about to turn eight, loses control of his senses and any understanding of parental authority on a single packet of table sugar. Thinking it was an enemy tank, the child once shot up our car with a paintball gun when we went there for a barbecue. The thought of seeing him again makes me shut the closet and leave the kitchen. I have, on occasion, gone to the collection and put one of my favorite toasters back into service while she's in the shower or taking a bath. If I'm lucky, it'll last for the day.
"Why do we need two toasters on the counter," she asks while still wrapped in a wet towel. Fortunately for our household budget, the appliance circus only performs in the kitchen. The washer and dryer, vestigial attachments from the builder a dozen years ago, have undergone more major surgeries than the Bionic Man. Why we can't replace them has less to do with the fact of the doorway being too narrow than my wife's inability to find them on sale. Her hairdryer, a vintage piece from back when safety standards read, "as long as it doesn't interfere with a nearby airport's radar", is held together with duct tape and rusted screws. And although bags for our vacuum cleaner haven't been available for several years, she sees no reason not to keep cleaning them out when they get filled rather than waste money on a new machine. Toasters though are a religious experience in our house. The thought of breakfast without several slices of carefully browned rye, or in her case whole wheat, is worse than running out of half and half. My wife takes more pride in perfect toast than she does in a turkey dinner or a successful soufflé. You can burn the coffee and run out of milk for the corn flakes, but if you don't have good toast, the day is ruined before it gets started. Thus, while our neighbors stand St. Anthony in their doorways and hang rosaries around the house, my wife prays to an electric pop up god who can be adjusted at will from light to dark. In her defense and not having a clear understanding as to their use, my wife keeps her coupons and opinions clear of my collection of power tools. Although she did once question why I needed three types of sanders - a belt, a circular, and an orbital - a query that was answered when I refinished the kitchen table over a rainy weekend. She did take an immediate liking to my new wire strippers when she discovered that I could use them to repair the electric cord from one of our toasters that she accidentally melted. At the top of my list for this weekend's chores is the necessity to replace my cordless drill. However, the upgrade from the 7.5-volt homeowner's special to the 14-volt construction-grade model seems destined for confrontation until I agree to stop on the way home from the hardware store and buy a Cuisine Machine 12-slice toaster. Apparently, WalMart had advertised the device in last Sunday's paper. She's been going on about this toaster all week long and with today, Saturday, as the final day of the sale, the insistence is now an aggravated symphony of whining and accusations.
"The Kitchen Marvel Toastette is almost a year old and it's starting to smoke," she complains as the WalMart sign comes into view from the highway. It takes less than ten minutes to complete the purchase. Don't get in the way of a determined shopper. We drive out of the WalMart lot and onto the county road, the Cuisine Machine 12-slice toaster resting comfortably in her lap. For most of the fifteen-minute drive home, she sits mumbling under her breath and reading the specifications on the box as though it's a bible. I clear my throat several times, trying to find an opening to initiate some safe conversation, but the image of this oversized appliance, soon to inhabit our kitchen squelches any coherent thought from taking voice.
My pondering soon slips to the unpleasant side of my brain as I try to imagine a scenario where a dozen pieces of bread would need to be toasted at the same time. A vision of my six nephews, their mouths surrounded by smeared rings of peanut butter and jelly, and my kitchen floor covered in similar stains, congeals in the dark recesses of my mind. The sickening picture breaks my silence, "You don't think this is a bit much?"
She shrugs. "If we move the food processor to the other side of the counter and slide the juicer into the corner, it'll fit just fine." Now that's a line I call an 'avalanche-starter'. Answer it the wrong way and before you know it, there are tears and sobs, guilty consciences, and eventually a trip to the jewelry store. Gravel tumbles down the mountainside, which starts the larger rocks sliding, and finally the big boulders, pelted by the onslaught of debris from above, give in to the pull of gravity and roar down on you. It doesn't take too many years of marriage to recognize the danger. The next words out of your mouth at a moment like this can be the difference between a sunny afternoon and a race for shelter.
I lean over and give her a kiss. "Would I ever do something like that? Have I ever denied you a new toaster?"
An unsettling silence darkens my apprehension as she turns from me and looks out the passenger window. I glimpse her hands and notice they're turning white with her gripping the toaster as if it's going to run away. Her words come out softly in more of a hiss than a resignation, "Let's go back to the store." Anger takes over her voice, "Or yesterday or the day before that." She tosses the toaster into the back seat and reaches for the door handle. "I just don't understand what's come over you lately. Everyone said that retirement was supposed to be relaxing, enjoyable, that you would finally be calm. Yet you've gone out of your way to make it into a living hell. I wish you could see yourself and hear your own words." She leaves the car, slamming the door behind her. I wait several minutes before parking the car in the garage. She's gone into the house. I unpack the drill and set up the charger to get it ready for use. Perhaps I'll drill a few large holes in my head to let the demons escape or at least the ones she's chased in there today. The Cuisine Machine 12-slice toaster sits on the hood of the car, looking for all the world like a oversized boom box, and I wonder if I should bring it in the house or drag her out.
The answer is revealed moments later as she comes charging through the door, waving a circular that must have arrived in today's mail. "I'm taking the toaster back." |
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