Do toasters have emotions?
Of course not.
However.
My elderly toaster, about 30 years old, recently stopped functioning.
The plunger thing wouldn't stay down. Being a DIY person I looked up the
tech info. It said that a thorough crumb-cleaning might solve the
problem. I did that. Problem not solved. I accepted that old toaster has
reached retirement age.
I surfed the web for a new toaster, inexpensive but above £3.99. Found one for about £20 which seemed fine. Took it home, undid the massive wrappings, put in on the counter in place of the old one. It was fat, shiny, with a snazzy red front, self-confident.
I started packing the old toaster to put outside for some passer-by to befriend. Then I thought I'd try it one more time, just in case. I put in two slices of my bakery-bought-sliced-by-me bread. The plunger stayed down. The bread toasted perfectly.
I took the new toaster back to the shop and got a refund. The oldie is behaving beautifully.
What's the moral of this story?
Well, obviously, oldie was upset and jealous that it was about to be replaced and when it saw the actual replacement it went haywire, repaired its own wires or whatever and came back to life.
I surfed the web for a new toaster, inexpensive but above £3.99. Found one for about £20 which seemed fine. Took it home, undid the massive wrappings, put in on the counter in place of the old one. It was fat, shiny, with a snazzy red front, self-confident.
I started packing the old toaster to put outside for some passer-by to befriend. Then I thought I'd try it one more time, just in case. I put in two slices of my bakery-bought-sliced-by-me bread. The plunger stayed down. The bread toasted perfectly.
I took the new toaster back to the shop and got a refund. The oldie is behaving beautifully.
What's the moral of this story?
Well, obviously, oldie was upset and jealous that it was about to be replaced and when it saw the actual replacement it went haywire, repaired its own wires or whatever and came back to life.
5 comments:
I like the name: Coolstyle. With his new face, he looks "cool".
I was getting annoying Spam comments so I've now made it necessary for comments to be moderated by me, Of course this means I have to remember to chck if there are any to moderate! Sorry about this, my friends, and sorry if accidentally some of your commnts were deleted.
Thanks for being here and hope you keep coming back..As for spammers: GO AWAY!
You are not welcome, ever.
You showed the old toaster it's not the boss of you. That's often enough.
Back in the Sixties when I worked for a computer company, customers would often report that their machine had broken down. Our engineers would arrive ready to undertake the complex process of tracing one faulty circuit board (out of thousands) and replace it.
However in most cases, their presence was enough, no action required. The mighty mainframe had contempt for users but awed respect for engineers.
Vincent, yes. That's like a terrible toothache suddenly getting better when you're sitting in the dentist's waiting room. The mystery of how things and conditions seem to have a consciousness of their own. Includes the placebo effect, for example.
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