Anyone who has known me for any length of time has probably heard my toaster rant. It's one of those wrongs I was dealt that I've just never been able to get over and that I can't seem to quit bitching about.
As the story goes, I had this boyfriend back in the eighties. Not just any old boyfriend, but a rather serious one whom I had been dating for several years when "the incident" occurred.

My role in "the incident" was that I asked for a toaster for Christmas one year. Because I really needed a toaster, and that was back in the day when I was working and supporting myself, by myself, and I didn't have the kind of spare change that allowed me to go out buying toasters all willy nilly. Or at least not the kind of toasters that would be worth trying to make toast with. Or the kind that would make nice gifts.

Now, in the interest of understanding just how wronged I really was that year, I'll say that he was he was making excellent money at the time and would have been more than able to afford to purchase a nice gift. Also keep in mind that in addition to a toaster, I made other gift suggestions as well, because even given my strong desire to be capable of making toast, a toaster certainly wasn't my idea of the ideal gift to recieve from a serious boyfriend at Christmas. Or ever. And I was still at the age where relationships actually contained an element of romance. Or at least I imagined they did.

Anyway, to make a long story short, the day rolled around and I had the fabulous pleasure of opening gifts on Christmas Eve with his entire family, and the even greater pleasure of pretending to be thrilled beyond belief by the ONE, SINGLE gift I had received from my "boyfriend": a crappy-ass, $10, plastic Kmart toaster. I seriously thought it was some kind of family-safe, PC kind of move, and that his real gift was going to be something really, really good, to be given in the throes of a private, romantic moment....

But no.

I got that one sorry gift from my "boyfriend" of several years. A POS toaster, that, for the record, didn't make edible toast, EVER, and I know this because I was stuck with that damn thing for at least ten years.
And I wanted to throw it out the window, or, better yet, at his head, every time it burnt something, which was every time.
And I've been pissed about it ever since.

Until today, that is.

Behold, the new toaster:


I haven't actually used it to toast anything yet because it just arrived this afternoon, but I did mess around with it a little so I can tell you that it RAISES AND LOWERS THE TOAST AUTOMATICALLY, and it's got a nifty little blue LED that tells you that it's doing it's toasty business. And the best part is the pleasant, civilized little electronic chime that tells you when it's finished and your toast is ready.
But truth be told, I really bought it because it looked cool. So even if it makes mediocre toast, at least it has great style. Which is something that neither Mr. Dumbshit, nor his gift toaster had.

The moral to this story, you ask?
First, for the guys: Never, ever, EVER give only a practical gift to a female "interest". Yes, practical gifts are OK if they have been requested or are a to-die-for kind of indulgent practial thing that you know she'll really love, but you must also give a something personal and romantic and girly. If you want be spoken to ever again, that is.
And ladies? Never underestimate the cluelessness of men, and never put up with a crappy toaster or a crappy man for a minute longer than you have to.