David and Sons’ Perfect-Crunch Toaster Oven

The apartment door creaked as it swung shut. The lights were off, but waning sunshine cast through the blinds in lengthy ribbons, which settled over the crumpled snack bags and loose papers that covered the dusty countertops. Dishes stacked tall in the sink; two trash bags sat full and bulging, hanging from the knob of a closet door.

Robert sighed as he set the grocery bag onto the stovetop, using its heft to shove aside the pizza box that still sat covering the front-left burner. Crumbs rained to the floor in a cascade; Robert dusted them away with his socks. As he reached within the grocery bag and pulled out the 100-count bag of pizza rolls, his phone buzzed in his pocket.

“Robert here,” he said, answering it with a tap of his earbud.

“Hey Rob… it’s Clarissa—from work.”

“Oh, hey Clarissa,” Robert said, trying to sound pleasant.

“I know it’s last-second, but that friend of mine I’d been telling you about—Anna—is visiting town. Do you want to join us out tonight? We’re thinking about hitting Spades around ten.”

“I’d love to,” Robert lied, “but I’ve got plans tonight. You two have fun, though!”

“I—of course. Just… let me know if your plans change, yeah? We’d love to see you out.”

“Can do,” Robert said, already reaching for his earbud to end the call. With a tap, he was free of the dreaded blind-date setup, something he’d never asked for. “Just because I’m single doesn’t mean I’m lonely,” he grumbled to himself, continuing to unpack his groceries.

“No—it’s your loneliness that makes you lonely.”

Robert jumped, whirling in place towards the unexpected voice. His arm knocked a can of chili off the countertop—it landed on his foot. Robert yelped and drew it up to a clutching arm as his eyes strained in his dim kitchen. “Who said that?”

But no voice answered back. As Robert hopped in place on one foot, massaging at his throbbing toes, he decided that it must’ve been someone in the hall beyond his apartment door speaking—a phone call or something. And so, with his foot aflame with pain, Robert reached into the grocery bag and removed the 24-count frozen burrito bag. He hobbled over to the freezer and pulled the door open.

“That frozen stuff is simply terrible for you.”

Robert again whirled towards the voice—and again, he saw no speaker standing in his kitchen.

“Who’s there? I did wrestling in high school,” Robert warned his tormentor.

“Just me. That was an easy lie, about having plans tonight,” sighed the voice, and Robert walked towards the sound, disbelieving. “You and I both know you’ll be here, yourself, practically vegetating until it’s time to sleep.”

Robert stooped before his kitchen counter, squinting. “What is this—someone hid a speaker in my toaster? A walkie-talkie? Whatever kind of joke this is, it’s not funny.” Robert opened the toaster oven’s glass door and groped inside with his hand, trying to find anything out-of-place. He then hoisted the thing and turned it upside-down, setting a new hail of crumbs tumbling to the floor as its tray was inverted.

“Ow—easy—I get dizzy,” said the voice.

“Christ… am I losing my mind?” Robert asked.

“Imagine how I must feel,” said the toaster.

Robert fainted.

***

“Yes ma’am—thank you ma’am. Next Thursday will be fine.”

Robert sighed as he hung up the phone. Apparently hearing voices from the appliances wasn’t enough to get him an appointment with a psychiatrist any sooner than ten days from now. Still, if there was any consolation, the thing hadn’t spoken since Robert’s fall… the woman on the phone had called it a “transient psychotic episode.”

A rumbling stomach told Robert it was time to eat. On autopilot, Robert reached for the freezer door and pulled out the bag of frozen burritos. He dialed in 450 degrees—he’d long since memorized all the temperatures and times of his favorite foods—and then he reached for the toaster oven’s door.

It wouldn’t open.

“The hell,” Robert grumbled to himself, tugging at the door handle with both hands now.

“I won’t open,” declared a defiant voice. “Such food is unworthy.”

“I—what?” Robert balked, glaring at the toaster oven.

“I am David and Sons’ Perfect-Crunch Toaster Oven—a precision culinary instrument and David and Sons’ most expensive model. I won’t demean myself toasting something like that burrito. Who even toasts burritos?”

“You’re not real,” Robert pleaded to himself. He closed his eyes and chanted it, willing it into his reality. He opened his eyes and pulled at the door.

“Nope,” said the toaster.

Robert gripped the toaster oven’s sides and lifted it, flexing his arms. “Like I said earlier, David and Sons, I did wrestling in high school. I don’t know what sort of locking mechanism you’ve got, but if you think you can keep me out, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself when your lock is shattered.”

***

Robert glared at the toaster oven over his plate of scrambled eggs.

“The hell kind of toaster won’t toast,” Robert grumbled.

“One with pride in what it does,” David answered. “What is your job, Robert? Do you take pride in your work?”

“Listening to my hallucinations is one thing,” Robert said, massaging wearily at his temples. “Answering my toaster’s questions is a whole ‘nother level.”

“What’s the harm in humoring me?”

Robert was too thoroughly baffled to take a firm stance. “I, uh, work in graphic design. Large firm… soul-sucking corporate stuff. Logo packages, the works.”

“Ah, a professional creative. We’re a lot alike, you and I,” said the animated toaster. “We both artists, in our own way.”

“You’re a toaster, not an artist,” Robert snorted. “And I’m as much an artist as a rubber stamp. My job is just template work—plug in the company name, choose from our color palettes, and send to client for proofs.”

“Where is the joy in a job so callously done?”

“We’re talking about work—joy’s not supposed to enter the equation.”

“Then you know less about art than this toaster,” David chimed. “Have a care, Robert—your life is empty enough as it is. Fill it with fulfillment through your work, and the rest will follow.”

Robert stood abruptly. “I’m done talking to my hallucinations… if you’ll excuse me, David-the-toaster, I think I need to go plan my resignation from my job and withdrawal from my life, on account of my complete and total break from reality.”

“I’m not a hallucination, Robert—I’m a toaster.”

***

Robert took the next day off from work. “Real bad migraines,” he said into the phone. He desperately wanted to tell someone about his condition, but he had no friends or family to tell. If his manager would only ask Robert to explain, he’d be able to offload this torture—get a sane outsider’s perspective on his troubles.

“We hope you feel better soon,” the manager intoned without any audible hope. No follow-up questions were asked. “Just do the Jackson Palm file remote before 5:00 and we won’t even count the sick day. The rest can wait—we’ll see you tomorrow.”

Robert sank into his desk chair and opened his design programs. Templates were opened—icon primitives were chosen from short lists, and color palettes were drag-and-dropped onto the canvas. In not even a half hour, Robert had created six logo primaries and two sheets of secondaries for each.

“And people pay you for that?” asked a voice from the kitchen.

“Quiet, toaster. I’m working.”

“That what you call it? Working?”

“And what would you call it?”

“Disappointing,” David said. “Sometimes you call me ‘toaster’—maybe it’s true that we’re mostly defined by what we do. If all I do is toast things, and if I toast with the barest effort possible, that makes me the lowest I could conceivably be.”

Robert did not respond to the kitchen appliance.

“But if I have passion for my work—if I make sure that anything I make is a work of art? People will see a piece of bread so golden-brown they will say ‘wow, here was a toaster of import—here was a machine worth knowing.’ Do you know what makes a toasting extraordinary?”

Robert typed far louder than was necessary, trying to drown out the monologue with keystrokes.

“It’s not just any one factor, but a combination. There’s the crunch—sharp-edged, but soft behind it. There’s the golden-brown tone to the bread—not too dark, of course. If it’s done right, it’s almost an orange painted across the bread. It’s the sugars turning brown, you know, so different breads will have a different ideal shade depending on their sugar content.”

Robert sighed.

“You can never compromise the bread’s best qualities—if a loaf is naturally flaky, you want to preserve that. If its crust is soft, and you make it brittle, then it’s not the same bread. You complement—never override.”

“Please, toaster—David—just an afternoon of peace. That’s all I ask. I can’t work like this.”

“You’re not working,” David asserted. “You’re skirting by—that’s all you’ve ever done.”

“And I’m supposed to take life lessons from a toaster? A thing not even alive?”

“There are lessons to learn from everyone and everything, Robert. Come back to me when you’ve found one, and we can see about making one of those burritos.”

***

Fortunately for Robert, the microwave took no pretentious stands on work ethic: it warmed his burrito without complaint. As Robert lifted his prize to his mouth, its soggy tortilla tore, releasing a trickle of beef-and-bean mash to his lap. Robert yelped, and he heard a chuckle issue from his kitchen.

Frustrated at the farce his life had become—and wanting to prove to his toaster he wasn’t as useless as it thought him to be—Robert tended to long-overdue chores. He scrubbed the dishes in the sink; he walked the two trash bags down to the dumpster. Inside the closet he could now access, he found the broom and dustpan. A quick pass over his floor removed the most offensive of the spills of crumbs.

“Life lessons from everything,” Robert grumbled as he unloaded his dishwasher. He lifted a fork and held it up, staring at it. “Teach me something, oh fork. Set me on a better path.”

The fork, of course, said nothing. Robert placed it into its drawer, nestled against the other forks in its own compartment of the silverware organizer.

“And you, fair spoon? Any wisdom to impart?”

The spoon held its secrets; Robert tucket it away in the spoon section of the organizer.

“And you, knife?” Robert stared at it, watching the way the light played along its edge, and his brow suddenly furrowed. It, too, had a place as he filed it away.

The serving spoon came next—never used to serve guests, but rather as a last-resort giant spoon when the dishwasher was full and his standard spoons, unwashed. Robert placed it with the serving silverware. Then came another fork, placed with its kind. Then another spoon, which joined its like.

A realization hit Robert: when was the last time he felt he’d had a place so well-defined? He somehow felt envy for his own silverware. Robert was a listing vessel—wouldn’t it be nice to have a place he belonged to? To have a purpose so clearly defined, and a place to neatly go?

He shook off the epiphany and frowned. No, this couldn’t be what the toaster had referred to—after all, Robert hardly felt that way… it was just an odd moment of sentiment, likely tied to his ongoing mental unraveling. And yet, whether he felt it or not, maybe it would be enough to convince the tyrannical toaster.

“I feel insane to say it,” Robert called out, still filing away forks, “but I felt a pang of envy for my own silverware. I guess I see the pleasantness of having a function, and an allotted place to be… it’d be nice, I guess.”

Robert heard a ding! sound from the kitchen. “My dear boy, it seems you’ve finally understood the quiet joy of fulfillment and belonging. How about a celebratory burrito?”

***

The toasted one was better than the microwaved… its crust was crispy and warm—firm, yet soft within. The meal passed without comment from David, and it was better that way; Robert didn’t think he could’ve survived the thing’s gloating about the perfect, golden crisp of the burrito.

After his dinner, he tended to his laundry. He folded wrinkling shirts and slowly reduced the sagging heap stacked by his bed. One by one, he paired the loose socks into sets. The green one had no partner—its match, perhaps lost in the wash cycle.

He set the lone sock on his desk as he fell back into his work chair. He didn’t have to clock in, but a head-start on the EcoSphere Landscaping file would make tomorrow far more tolerable. He read their brief: it was a company that prided itself on sustainable garden designs. A nature template seemed sensible; he selected a leaf icon and a clean, sans-serif font.

But as he sank back into his work rhythm, a frown began to tug at the corner of his lips. We’re defined by what we do, Robert thought. He dragged down the green-and-white color palette, and the leaf immediately took up its new hue. I’m a designer, Robert affirmed to himself.

But was he?

His mouse cursor hovered over the ‘save’ icon, but he couldn’t click it. If all I do is toast things, and if I toast with the barest effort possible, that makes me the lowest I could conceivably be.

An image popped into Robert’s mind. There was no icon for this specific vision… he’d had to go custom, something he had barely done since his interview phase. He sketched a globe, inside of which a variety of plants and a miniature ecosystem flourished. The globe was cradled by two hands, showing the company’s care and sustainability. The company name, now in a custom font inspired by the curves of nature, arched over the globe like a sunrise. This logo wasn't just a design; it was a story, one that spoke of nurturing and growth.

It was also horribly time-inefficient. Two hours had passed, and Robert was unsure if he’d even blinked, so lost in the flow he had been.

And yet, as he clicked the file save button, a warmth bloomed in his chest. He looked at the logo he’d made and felt something he hadn’t felt in years: a thrill of pride at a job well done.

“Now, at last, I’ve seen you working—and it turns out that when you try, you’re not half-bad.”

“Quiet, David,” Robert said, but this time, the words weren’t quite so sharp.

As Robert stood, he stretched, and then his eyes settled back on the item he’d set on his desk: the green sock sat alone and unmatched. He picked it up and turned it in his hands, considering.

“If we’re defined by what we do, and you take pride in what you do, you finally have pride in who you are—and that’s a powerful driving force,” the toaster said.

Robert nodded his head, coming to a decision.

***

It was a Sunday morning, but a morning like few others in Robert’s life. The toaster had dinged, and Robert pulled open its glass door.

He lifted the breakfast burrito, toasted to a perfect golden brown, and set it on his plate. A small cascade of crumbs rained to the ground, and Robert swept them aside with his sock-covered feet.

“Please, Rob, not with your new pair of green socks…”

Robert turned to the voice and smiled. And then he reached inside the toaster for the second burrito, setting Anna’s on the second plate.

A thing that never lived couldn’t really die… but listening to twin laughs in the cramped apartment of the man who had risen to lead designer at his graphics firm, and eyeing the perfectly caramelized tortillas in their flawless golden sheen, David resonated with pure, unadulterated contentment.

And then, without any exterior sign, whatever had flicked on in the toaster so many months ago suddenly flicked back off. David and Sons’ Perfect-Crunch Toaster Oven would never speak again, but as Robert basked in the woman’s smile—as his heart soared with love and fulfillment the likes of which he’d never felt before—vitality seemed to surge in him.

And indeed, in the ribbons of sunlight that slitted between the blinds of his apartment window, Robert’s tawny complexion seemed to take on a new tone:

He glowed as though he were golden, too.