I think we got a new toaster recently.

But I’m not sure.

I should know. I pay attention to toasters. Kind of. A toaster was my favorite bathtub toy while I was growing up.

When the future poor Mrs. Batt and I were about to become hitched, I couldn’t afford an engagement ring. Something about not having a job or any money. I bought the next best thing — a used toaster. It was the world’s first engagement toaster.

Trying to decide on the perfect toaster to give to someone who I’d be spending the rest of my life with, made me act like a squirrel trying to cross the street. I drooled on an experienced Toastmaster before purchasing a previously owned Sunbeam toaster. The Sunbeam was a beaut, previously owned by a little old lady who used it only on Sundays before church. That toaster was a trouper and served us well.

Back to our current situation, toaster-wise. I’m not sure what happened to the previous toaster. Perhaps it had become depressed by the upcoming election and a new toaster had ridden to the rescue. The old one worked fine except when my wife turned the setting so far to the right that the toaster adopted a scorched-bread policy. I believe that toast should be taken lightly. My wife likes it the color of a button on a black suit. Thanks to her toaster tampering, I’ve sent countless unintentional smoke signals. Toasters sending smoke signals were the butt-dialing cellphones of a previous era.

I know that the old toaster liked to keep me in the dark. It had no kill switch. If I saw smoke, I pulled the plug.

A toaster doesn’t burn toast. People burn toast. As an optimist, I see the toast as half-burned. Peanut butter, like gravy, covers a multitude of sins.

Most of us give little thought to toasters. Everyone wants a bigger TV. Why not a bigger toaster? I’m sure there are households equipped with Internet-ready, all-wheel drive, 60-inch toasters with Wi-Fi and automatic buttering capabilities.

One day, after I’d spoken at a conference in Texas, I encountered a toaster aficionado. I’m not sure I’d spent much time with one of those before. There can’t be many of them, but probably more than I think. He collected toasters. I expected him to tell me that the toasters in Texas were twice the size of those in Minnesota, but he talked about his favorite toasters, the toasters of his youth and the toasters he hoped to own one day.

As he talked, I could hear Rod Serling’s voice on “The Twilight Zone” saying, “There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man, a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination.”

I found the toaster collector’s enthusiasm captivating. I learned a lot — probably.

Humans are like trees, it takes some longer to mature than others. I wasn’t sure if this fellow was ahead of or behind me in that area. Albert Camus said, “Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.”

I think Camus was talking about all of us. Our new toaster has no normal setting. Neither do I.

In the movie, “The Blues Brothers,” Jake (played by John Belushi) and Elwood Blues (played by Dan Aykroyd) entered a diner where this dialogue took place.

Waitress: “Help you boys?”

Elwood: “You got any white bread?”

Waitress: “Yes.”

Elwood: “I’ll have some toasted white bread please.”

Waitress: “You want butter or jam on that toast, honey?”

Elwood: “No ma’am, dry.”

Dry toast has no appeal to me. I need a topping of some sort on my toast — butter, peanut butter, honey, jam, jelly or cinnamon and sugar.

Some countries favor Vegemite or Marmite. They are as wrong as my grade school classmate who recommended paste.

Not everyone eats breakfast, just the hungry people. Breakfast adds a comma to a day and it’s better with toast as long as you know what side your toast is buttered on.

How is the new toaster working out for me? Love arrives when you least expect it. In the movie, “The Toasters of My Life,” I’ll be playing myself.

I raise a slice of toast to you, my friend. Please join me in a toast to toast.

 

Al Batt’s columns appear in the Tribune every Wednesday and Sunday.