Toast

It was just sitting there, calling to me. I was powerless.

I love toast. I desire toast with butter and jam, and I must have it.

In the morning and late at night – especially late at night.

My tummy rumbles, and there’s only one way to stop it.

Toast.

I found this chrome goddess in a second-hand store.

I’m pretty sure they didn’t know what they had.

An early 1950s Sunbeam T20, with the art deco design embossed into the body.

I asked them to switch it on, but they didn’t know how.

“You’ll need a slice of bread. It won’t run without one,” I said, and the attendant looked at me like I’d landed on this planet quite recently.

He searched for the handle that all toasters have — the handle you push down on to make the bread descend.

“It doesn’t have one,” I said, and there was that look again.

“Put it behind the counter,” I said, “I’ll go and get some bread and be right back. Don’t sell it to anyone.”

My look told him what would happen if he did.

The milk bar on the corner was out of bread — of course they were.

I legged it up the street and across the road, narrowly being missed by a four-wheel drive.

The bread aisle was way down the back — an old grocer’s trick, make them walk past everything else just to get to what they need — milk and bread.

“I got some,” I said as I undid the packet. Several slices spilled onto the floor. The attendant went to bend down and pick them up.

“Don’t worry about those. Go get the toaster.”

The attendant did what he was told and placed the toaster on the glass counter. Then, he bent down behind the counter and plugged the toaster into the power socket.

With a flourish, I gently placed two slices of bread in the slots on top of this chrome beauty.

I stood back as the bread magically lowered itself into the toaster.

“How the hell did it do that?” said the attendant.

“It magic,” I said, “or levers and metals that expand at different temperatures, but mostly magic.”

The attendant put his hand on the chrome surface and promptly burned himself.

“This thing is more than sixty years old. No safety back in those days,” I said as the attendant sucked his burnt fingers.

There was a click, and the bread slowly rose up and revealed itself.

“Got any butter? Jam?” I said.

The attendant disappeared into the stockroom and emerged with a knife, butter and jam.

An old English dinner plate appeared out of nowhere, and I buttered and jammed the perfectly toasted bread.

I handed the attendant a piece, and I devoured the other.

We licked our fingers, and I gave him the asking price.

“Never seen a toaster do that before,” he said as he looked for a box to put the slowly cooling toaster in.

“And you probably won’t. “ I said. “Too expensive to make. They were todays equavilent of about three hundred bucks. Very few people want to pay to see magic toast.”

“And you paid fifteen dollars for it?” said my hungry husband.

“Yep. Quite a bargain, if I do say so.”

I had toast and soup for lunch, and we had toast and pate for supper.

My husband thinks I’m slightly obsessed, and he might be right.

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If It Isn’t Warm It’s Just Burnt Bread

I eat breakfast in bed — not always, but most of the time.

When I don’t, I usually sit at our small wooden table near the only window in the kitchen.

I’m the sole ‘old person’ living in this share house.

I’ve done the share-house thing before when I was young and poor and studying.

Now I’m older and poor and not studying.

Being the last of five people to arise, I get a clear run at the bathroom.

The downside is that there probably won’t be any milk for breakfast.

Plan B is toast and Vegemite and possibly jam, depending on my mood.

My housemates are all female.

Ages range from early twenties to mid-thirties.

I’m no longer the last person admitted to the house as two of the females have moved overseas to advance their careers. In addition, two new females have been installed. I had very little say.

At the time of my admission to this house, I wondered why they let me rent a room. Now I know that I’m the token male. I’m six feet tall, and despite my age, I’m strong and handy with tools (my ute is full of them — remnants of a previous life). After I’d been living here for a few months, word got around the neighbourhood that I was good at fixing things. Being an upper-class neighbourhood, people expect to pay, so it has come in handy — beer money mostly.

Ours is the only share house in a street of multi-million dollar houses built for successful business people in the early nineteen hundreds — grand old houses.

The current owner inherited the house and lives amongst us. She’s a surgeon, but you would never know it. She’s down-to-earth, can drink the young ones under the table, but never when she on-call. She likes rock and roll and white bread.

My role here, apart from paying rent, is to be tall and robust and handy. I carry heavy stuff whenever someone moves in or out. I carry grocery bags and take out the rubbish. I’ve been called upon to escort drunken ex-boyfriends from the premises — I’m a match for drunk young men, but only just.

Spiders are my speciality — they don’t bother me, and I haven’t killed one yet. So they all live quietly outside now. I’m sure they are grateful.

The spider thing has come in handy whenever I have annoyed one of my female housemates enough to want me gone.

“But he catches spiders,” is the cry that has saved me a few times.

No one has ever said anything, but two years of Psych, back in the day, tells me that I’ve been installed because there is little chance of anyone falling in love with me and upsetting the dynamics of the house.

The realisation hurts a bit, but I can see the practical side of the argument.

By nine-thirty am,the house is all mine. The women are off being a doctor, politician, theatre manager, personal secretary.

People think that you pop a couple of pieces of bread into a toaster, and out it pops — toast.

Not so.

If you don’t butter it immediately (actual salted butter), it will not taste how toast is supposed to taste. If you are interrupted (as I sometimes am) and your toast gets cold, there is no way back. I know. I’ve tried every means possible to resurrect cold toast — it cannot be done. It just sits there and turns into burnt bread. Not fit for man or beast. Although, it has to be said that the local birds will eat it reluctantly.

My male friends think I’m crazy to live in a house full of unattainable females.

I’ve learned to enjoy the experience. Females are amazing creatures, and besides, I don’t have a choice. I could not afford to live on my own.

Paydays are few and far between when you are an unrecognised writer with a ute full of tools and not much else to offer to the world.

As long as there is soft white bread cut thickly and butter and possibly jam, then there is something to look forward to, at least until my flatmates burst in at the end of the day and bring an end to my writing and a beginning to the prospect of spending time with interesting people.

Illustration: Mary Maxam