What is the deal with toasters?

[Tulip]

i use a toaster oven rather than a toaster; it's more versatile. anyways, my previous one cost $40 and lasted only 6 months. talk about sucky quality.

[Undertoad]

I had a run of Toastmasters that didn't last for shit, so I told the ex we should go toaster shopping and the only criterion was that we should not buy a Toastmaster.

After looking over all the toasters she settled on... a Toastmaster.

Fucking control freak. That was year 6 of the marriage and that's the exact point at which it should have ended. The marriage was broke. Instead we tried repairing it and it went another 5 years.

The Toastmaster died quickly, and I bought the best-reviewed sub-$50 toaster on Amazon, which was a Black & Decker 4 slot deal. It's gone about 8 years now, and one of the levers broke, but the nice thing about a 4-slot is that if one side goes you still have the other side to work with.

[xoxoxoBruce]

That's when you should have said, NO.

[Flint]

There's something to be said for subtlety...
...like smashing the offending toaster with a sledgehammer and then feigning ignorance when the spousal unit happens upon the scene of the crime.

"What, the toaster bandit has struck again? I heard about this on the news. You always think this kind of thing only happens to other people."

This will put an end to those pesky marriages for you.

[Undertoad]

I never said NO, because I am passive-aggressive. Flint's approach would be much more likely.

When OCD and passive-aggressive collide the results are not pretty.

"Did you do everything on that list I gave you?"
Yeah.

"But the lawn isn't mowed."
Oh that list? I'll do that stuff tonight.

"Well that's what you said yesterday."
You are correct.

"Dammit I desperately need to get all this stuff done!"
I'm sorry you have that problem.

[Glinda]

I have the ultimate cool toaster. Actually, I have two of them (the original from 1949, and a later version from 1952). Both work perfectly and have never had to be repaired.

The Sunbeam Model T-20 appeared on the market in the late 1940s and, although it underwent some minor design changes and retoolings, it remained in Sunbeam's product line until 1997.

Engineered by Ludvig Koci with the design supervised by Ivar Jepson and styled by Robert D. Budlong, the T-20 was the first fully automatic toaster. An ad from 1954 states, "Automatic Beyond Belief! All you do is drop in the bread ... Bread lowers itself automatically, no levers to push ... Toast raises itself silently, without popping or banging."

In a 1949 Consumer's Union test of toasters, they note the novel design, "The weight of the bread closes an electrical contact; this turns on the current and the bread slice is automatically lowered...". And the T-20 was one of the first toasters to use a bi-metallic, heat-sensitive device to gauge the temperature of the bread slice rather than the temperature of the toaster. This is supposed to prevent the bread from being able to burn.

The T-20 shed its "incised lines" and became the T-35; the light/dark control was placed on the front of the unit in the 60s, where it remained until the toaster went out of production in 1996.

The Sunbeam cost $22.50 in 1949, $85.00 in 1996 This was always a high quality toaster, perhaps it just couldn't compete anymore with the $9.99 K-Mart specials.

HA! I say. My parents received the T-20 model as a wedding gift 58 years ago, and the sucker still works like a charm. I had to pick it out of the trash six or eight years ago, when my mother threw it away because it was "old."

I declined to make the obvious comment about the person who threw it away...

P.S. I see one for sale on eBay... only three hours left!

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Glinda

P.S. I see one for sale on eBay... only three hours left!

It never occurred to me to buy an old toaster on e-bay. What a great idea!

[Flint]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

...
Flint's approach would be much more likely.
...

I don't think any of us were expecting him to say that. [/Bart Simpson]

[xiphos]

My toaster is well over ten years old, and the timer is broken, so no darkness setting. If I want well done, I let it stay in longer, if I want it light, I don't put it in for too long. Only two buttons, and only one works. + it only costed me about 20$ from the local Wal-mart.

[skysidhe]

All products seem to be made in China.

Free trade at work.

[Pooka]

Flint and I had a helluva time finding a toaster... not some contraption that cooked eggs, makes coffee and toastes a bagel... not some flashy futuristic thing that probably spoke better English than we do... just a fucking toaster... a plain simple toast with options of only light to dark and pops up when done toaster... a nice shiny metal toaster...

Aparently they don't make those anymore... they are all like $50 and up and replace half the kitchen gadgets we don't have and don't want taking up space on our counter.

My mom on the other hand still has the toaster that belonged to my grandparents when she went off to college... and she is now 61... it is the only toaster that has ever graced the threshold of that house... it still works... with all the advances in science instead of improvements we have disposable products at higher prices... built in obsolecense....

[HungLikeJesus]

I want a web-enabled toaster so I can have toast ready when I get home from work, with a 24 inch LCD display so I can visit the Cellar while making pop-tarts.

[Flint]

Your regular toaster can do that, HLJ, if you make the proper, um, chemical adjustments.