No, seriously. The damn toaster literally hates me every time I try to use it, and now I swear, the stupid thing mocks me every chance it gets. Even now as I’m sitting in the living room writing this, I can hear its muddled, mechanical laugh, and to top it all off, I think the fridge is getting in on the inside joke. Wish I could tell both appliances to shut up without sounding like a nut job. I suppose writing this will have to do as my husband specifically forbade me from drop-kicking the little metal bastard into a dumpster fire. Of course, the toaster doesn’t pick on him or anyone else in the slightest. And, since I’m spilling the beans here, let it be known on the Net that I never did a damn thing to that toaster to make it hate me. Never thought inanimate objects could have unfounded vendettas but that shows what I know.
Guess I’m getting ahead of myself here, so let me backtrack a bit. We’d purchased the malignant little machine after our former toaster decided to bug out one day, seemingly, for no reason at all other than the fact we’d had it for six years or so. Guess it’d finally had enough toasting. Anyway, we wanted something that’d have big enough slots for not only bread and waffles but bagels, plus the occasional thickly sliced sourdough bread. And we found one: nice shell color that’d fit with the kitchen, sizeable slots and then some, a retractable power cord, and it was on sale. Maybe too much so now that I think about it.
Of course, we bought it and tossed the other one out on the curb to be picked up by metal scrappers, and for a while, the new one was a dream come true. The digital panel let us program anything we wanted to toast and stored it to memory, along with suggestions of what to put on whatever we were cooking. I never thought I’d become so enthralled with such a small piece of technology but it happened. At least, I was until the day the thing started to act up around me and only me.
It was small stuff at first, as it often is. It would pop too early, making the food only half-cooked or still cold or it wouldn’t engage when I tried to press the start switch. I thought it was just going a bit on the fritz and contacted the manufacturer, who sent a tech out that said there was nothing wrong with it. Even when I attempted to use it in front of him, it worked perfectly. Maybe I was having a bad day or something. I don’t know. Anyway, it didn’t act up for a while until about two weeks ago. Once again, I called a tech out, who still insisted that the machine was working just fine and as he was leaving, I heard it: that muddled, mechanical laugh. At first, I thought it was the tech, so I said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that,”
He turned around, confused, “I didn’t say anything. I was busy sending a message to my boss,” and he held up his mobile to show me.
“Sorry,” I said, “I thought I heard you say something. Thanks for coming out,”
“No problem. Have a good day,” I shut the door behind him and went to go to my office when I heard the laughing again. This time, I knew it wasn’t from another person as I was the only one in the house, so I followed it into the kitchen. I didn’t hear it, waited a few minutes and still didn’t hear it, so I turned to leave when whatever it was belted out a loud, “Ha!”
“What the bloody hell is going on around here?!” I shouted but, obviously, got no response. I felt like a whacko just standing in my kitchen and screaming at nothing, so I brushed it off as stress from trying to write my latest story and stomped back to my office. I had my hand on the doorknob to go inside when the laughing started again and didn’t stop, “Now I’m gonna find out what the hell that is!” I followed the sound back to the kitchen and stopped in front of (you guessed it) the damn toaster. I was slack-jawed as I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The fucking toaster was laughing. I really couldn’t believe it, so I did what anyone in this technological day and age does: I whipped out my mobile and started recording video, “No one’s gonna call me loony for this,” I said under my breath as the laughter went on for a full minute then turned to dead silence. I double-checked that I’d actually captured the sound then tucked my mobile away to show my husband when he came home later. Feeling smug without really knowing why, I went back to my office to get some work done.
Well, as you can probably guess, me showing my significant other the video went about as well as Toucan Sam doing stand-up in a room full of starving predators. He watched it for ten seconds then asked why I’d filmed the toaster. I turned the volume all the way up and held it to his ear but he only asked what was he supposed to be hearing. I held it to my own ear and heard the laughter again but for some reason, he couldn’t. “Think whatever it is you’re writing is getting to you, babe,” he remarked as he took his night pills, “Maybe you should take the weekend off from it,”
“I know it seems bonkers but I’m telling you: I heard the toaster laughing at me, and lately, it hasn’t been working right for me. Seems to glitch out in one way or another every time I try to use it,”
“None of the techs said anything was wrong?” I shook my head, “I never had a problem with it, so I don’t know what to tell you,”
“The little bugger hates me; that’s what’s going on. Plain and simple,” I huffed and crossed my arms.
He laughed and gave me a hug, “Now you’re really going a bit far with your ideas. Mechanical objects can’t hate humans. It’s impossible,”
I looked at him, “Have you seen Maximum Overdrive?”
“Yeah. Good film. Let’s go to bed. You’re exhausted and so am I,” He led me up to the bedroom but as I started to climb the stairs, I heard that damn laughter again.
So, since I can’t dispose of the evil little bugger like I really want to, any suggestions? I’m open to just about anything.