I like bread and butter

I bought a new toaster the other day. I'm taking it back tomorrow.

For some reason, I don't know what got into me, I bought it just by looking at the picture on the box. The store didn't have a display model. The picture on the box looked nice. Black. Trim. A bagel button. A stop button. A lift the toast out of the toaster instead of sticking a fork in the toaster and getting shocked lever.

Looks can be deceiving. Oh, it had all that stuff, and more.

1. A silver 7 position browning control knob that was next to impossible to tell what number it was set at by looking at it, but the indicator protruded just enough you could set it by feel.
2. A one foot electrical cord. Maybe it was a foot, probably less. It was positioned at the front of the toaster. Which is just plain stupid. The only other way to put it is "just plain ignorant". And the directions said to keep the toaster 3 inches from the wall. So the cord is 12 inches and the toaster is about 10 inches long. I'll do the math for you. That leaves 2 inches which is less than 3. Unless one wants to put the front of the toaster closest to the wall outlet and reach over the toaster to work the controls, it just ain't gonna work.

But that's not why I'm returning the toaster. I'm returning it because it doesn't toast bread. It chars it.

Do you remember my smoke alarm that goes off when I boil water? It doesn't go off when the stupid new toast burns the last slice of bread in the house and sends clouds of hazy smoke all over the apartment. Smoke that smells like burned toast.

I tried setting the browning control on the toaster near the middle the first time, then the far right, then the far left. As far as I could tell that's what I did. Yield: 1 slice charred bread, 1 charred bagel, and 1 extra crispy bagel. To get one edible bagel, I had to stand over the toaster like a hawk and hit the stop button and even then I was a tad too late.

They just don't make things like they used to.