I have a coffee cup that I bought at a 24/7 type of store. I bought it so that I could carry my coffee around with me wherever I go. The only problem with it is that it has a thin strip of metal around it, so, when my coffee gets cold, I can't just pop it into the microwave for a minute or two to heat it back up.
We live in the 21st century. I can live without the flying cars and personal robots we're supposed to have by now. What I can't live without is a hot cup of coffee. Get busy on fixing the microwave, boys.
Since I'm on the subject of kitchen appliances and ruined food, I'd just like to ask: Who's the practical joker who invented the burn-your-toast setting on the toaster?
More than that, what engineering genius thought it would be a good idea to actually ADD that to the settings? Who needs or wants their toast to have the same consistency of a charcoal briquette?
My father--who, at the age of twelve, would fix his uncle's car in exchange for the opportunity to drive it around town--can never get the setting just right, and that's even after my wife has already set it to perfection for the perfectly toasted slice of bread, singed to the perfect shade of brown.
Even with the proper setting already located and set, my Dad still can't get it right. The simple act of placing a slice of bread into the slot will cause that bread to come out either too raw or too burnt.
My Dad swears he doesn't touch, move, or fiddle with the control lever. I don't have the same problem, and neither does my wife, who probably has the digital dexterity to crack a safe, but there it lays.
I don't blame my Dad. I blame the toaster manufacturers who still think that as we dip our toe into the 21st century, the human race should have the option to ruin their food. They don't even temper steel at the temperature the toaster apparently achieves.
Now, the coffee maker is an interesting machine. I remember my mother making a pot for my Dad every morning in one of those old, percolating machines. The coffee was great, but it took forever for the end result to be achieved and enjoyed. A plus was that it made several cups of coffee, none of which I was allowed to partake of because of my youth.
There was a giant leap for mankind in the invention of a coffee maker that made twelve cups of coffee in only minutes. This was the morning beverage equivalent of evolving from sending a monkey into space to landing a man on the moon.
And then, for some reason, the coffee maker devolved. It went from making TWELVE cups of coffee in minutes, to making only ONE cup of coffee. It doesn't matter that it makes its lone cup of coffee in even lesser time, it still only makes one cup of coffee.
One.
On the other hand, they've gone overboard on the blender.
As far as I'm concerned, the blender should only have ONE setting: blend. Do I really need to grate, grind, beat, shred, blend, liquefy, frappe, whip, stir, aerate, puree, crumb, chop, and mix? Do I really need a special Ice Breaker-Pulse switch that I can set to High or Low? And those are just the features I'm reading off of the $24.99 blender I bought at Wal-Mart.
If scientists would put that kind of effort into the toaster, we would all live in a perfect world. A perfect world indeed.
Raising My Father
RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com
jimduchene.blogspot.com Fifty Shades of Funny
@JimDuchene
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