2024, Family, Food, Technology, Uncategorized

Death By Toaster

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Husband and I got a new toaster the other day, trading in our British-made Dualit for an Italian SMEG. The Dualit worked great for about 20 years, but finally gave up.

One feature I really liked in the Dualit was the ability to raise up the finished toast over the top of the slots with the lowering lever after it was done. No need to stick your fingers in the hot slot to retrieve the toast. The SMEG doesn’t have that capability. The other day I was fishing some toast out of the SMEG with a fork when I heard a voice from the past, my mother’s, saying:

“Stop! You’re going to get electrocuted if you stick that fork in there!”

I think my mother said that to me every time she saw me making toast. I don’t know if anyone ever died by sticking a metal implement into a toaster after the toast was done, but she sure was going to make certain I didn’t.

I ignored the warning from the past and fished out the toast with the fork. I didn’t get electrocuted. The toast was good. Sorry, Mom. I am just going to live dangerously.

What safety admonitions did you get as a young person? How do you live dangerously? How do you like your toaster?

31 thoughts on “Death By Toaster”

  1. How in heaven‘s name are you supposed to get the toast out if it doesn’t pop up above the top of the toaster?

    Growing up, I also used to hear this from my mom. But I haven’t thought about it in years because I converted to a toaster oven person decades ago. In fact, I can’t even imagine why anybody uses regular toasters anymore.

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      1. Considering what so many people believe today with absolutely no evidence, worms out of the garden hose doesn’t seem all that radical a belief.

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        1. Realistically, drinking water out of a garden hose can’t be a sanitary things to do. I’m not finicky, but I certainly wouldn’t do it unless I was dying of thirst and there was no other source of clean water.

          As far as fishing a piece of toast out of a toaster with a fork or other metal implement, that can’t possibly be a safe thing to do, either, if the toaster is plugged in.

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        3. Toasters were originally all metal and before pop-up ones they didn’t automatically shut off, so it would be easy to short circuit them if you touched the high resistance heating wires with a metal fork. With a pop-up toaster (which was first introduced by a Minneapolis company), if a loose wire were to touch any part, you could get a shock, fork or not.

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  3. There must have been one person, somewhere, who got a big shock from putting a fork into some mal-functioning toaster… for it to have become such a thing. ?

    My mother’s worries were, I think, more about what other people would think of us. I don’t remember a lot of safety precautions being given to my sister and me, though there must have been some… don’t go too far out into the water, stay close to home with the bikes rings a bell.

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    1. Back in the 30s, when James Thurber was writing at The New Yorker, he used to make fun of his Ohio relatives, one of whom believed that if an electric light socket in the ceiling had no bulb in it, electricity would leak out all over the house.

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      1. When I was little, my dad would chase me with the plug at the end of the cord to the vacuum cleaner. He had convinced me that if he touched me with the metal legs of the plug, the residual electricity in them would shock me, so I’d flee in panic. Keep in mind, that electricity in most (if not all?) European countries is 220 V, and I’d experienced getting zapped more that once plugging something into a live outlet, and that hurt.

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  6. The toaster thing, the no swimming after a meal thing, the don’t run with scissors rule, the “Careful with that stick, you’ll put someone’s eye out!” (George Carlin), Wash your ears before potatoes start growing in there. If you swallow watermelon seeds (or maybe any seeds for that matter), a watermelon will grow in your stomach.

    Soloing wilderness canoeing can be dangerous, but I’ve survived about 20 trips so far with only bumps and bruises. I suppose XC skiing down “steep” hills is dangerous, but my definition of steep has morphed into more of a bunny hill steep than black diamond steep.

    I don’t think about my toaster other than it’s a toaster oven that does a reasonable job of toasting, baking, quick heating of small items. Seems to be a smarter idea than an old-fashioned toaster mainly for the safety issue.

    Chris in O-town

    **BSP** If you don’t subscribe to my blog or newsletter, you may not know that I’ll be in conversation on Monday, April 15, with the legendary MN singer, Connie Evingson! Yes, that’s correct. She amazingly agreed to “interview” me for Minnesota Mystery Night at Axel’s restaurant in Mendota. For all the details, visit my website at https://chrisnorbury.com. These monthly events often sell out, so call Axel’s to reserve either a dinner table before the event or a seat at the event. They have a waiting list if you call a day or two too late and often have no shows.

    **END BSP**

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      1. I hope you can get in, PJ. The staff has been pretty good about squeezing people in, and there are always some cancellations. If I had any clout, I’d try to get you two seats, but I don’t. 😦

        Chris

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        1. We have made dinner reservations, so I’m hopeful that might be to our advantage if anything opens up. If not, I’ll still try to say “Hi” before we leave.

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  7. I was the youngest of 5. I think mom and dad had quit worrying about that stuff as I don’t ever remember being warned about those things. it was the outside stuff; stay away from the tractors, watch out for the spinning Power Take Off shaft or the mean cows or the bull.

    I’m more impressed you could find British and Italian toasters! My Target doesn’t have that kind of selection. 🙂

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  8. Over salting things would ruin my kidneys. Over sweetening things would cause “sugar diabetes”. Drinking coffee before I was old enough would cause me to grow black feathers on my back. By playing with a stick, I’d poke my eye out. Certain of the rules of the road in California that permitted things did not apply to 16-year-old drivers. If a kid looked out the back window of a moving car, the police would give a ticket to the mother who was driving. 

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  10. I had an old Toastmaster toaster for years. I don’t know how old it was but the cord was covered with reddish cloth and the plug was round. It had a roundish shape. I liked it. I didn’t have room for it when I moved to Northfield so I donated it to Goodwill, which was a mistake. I eventually replaced it and I don’t like the new one at all. I use the toaster oven more often, but I don’t actually eat much toast.

    We always drank out of the garden hose when we were kids. For some reason that water was delicious and very cold. Dad drank out of it too, so he apparently didn’t think it was dangerous. Mom wouldn’t have lowered herself to that kind of slurping.

    When I lived with Morgan during the drought of 1988, I would come home from work very hot and tired. I remember feeling so hot and desperate for cold refreshing water. We had our own well there. He planted thousands of trees (really, he did), and he ran the hose a lot to fill big tanks in the back of his truck to haul water to all the trees. The water ran very cold. I would come home from work and just go stand under the running hose outside until I felt better.

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  11. What a Day! 

    My grandma used to tell us that if we ate raw dough while she was making cookies, cakes, or pie, “It will plug your hole.” Withas many children and grandchildren as she had the scare tactics must have been necessary jusy to get the baked goods in the oven before we snitched it all. She really did say that.

    I have been on the run all day. Lou just had a discharge care conference in which we planned for his return home on Friday withsome in-home PT and OT. He is much stronger while some of the cognitive processes have cleared a bit. Next we wait for his neurology appointment. But it sure appears that PT will be vital to his living at home. 

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  12. I don’t remember a lot of warnings from my parents, but we definitely were warned about the toaster. No fork unless you first unplug the toaster. Putting fingers in electrical sockets was another one, probably justified.

    We have a toaster oven, which is much nicer. No toast stuck in slots, and you can bake in it, too.

    As for living dangerously, I do that every time I drive. There’s no such thing as Minnesota Nice on our roads!

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