The other day I had... well, I suppose that epiphany is too strong a word, considering what it actually involved. I'll just tell the story, but I'd ask you to refrain from judging me until I get to the point.
I was making cheese on toast, and I was toasting the bread in the toaster before putting it under the grill (seriously, what's going on with people that don't do that? I asked for cheese on toast, not cheese on bread). The toast popped up and I saw that, as always, there was a narrow strip at the top of the slice that hadn't properly toasted: a white avenue of imperfection on my road to cheese paradise. I bemoaned this fact to my father, and asked aloud why they don't make toasters deep enough to fit the whole slice of bread in.
My father gave me a look that I have come to recognise from my friends and family. It is a complicated expression, driven by mixed emotions. It contains genuine surprise, a soupçon of mirth, a ripple of pained symnpathy for my enduring idiocy and, perhaps, a tiny element of pride: not really in me, but in the fact that they themselves are responsible for my cheerful existence despite my own obvious shortcomings.
"Why don't you," he said, "just put the bread in sideways?"
I think that I stared a moment in utter incomprehension. I think maybe I even opened my mouth to chastise the old man for saying something so ludicrous. Then the concept had time to percolate, and my mouth fell open again, this time in surprise, in awe.
Why don't I just put the bread in sideways?
I would ask you to hold off judging me for just a moment more and consider the following: I had just had a problem solved that would otherwise have followed me my entire life. Let's face it, I was never going to buy a toaster that was deep enough to fit the whole slice (in retrospect, probably because they don't exist). I was going to have to put up with that niggle till the day I died, and here it was solved. Grateful? I felt tuppin' indebted. It was too late for that particular slice, but I had the rest of my life to get it right.
Fine, go ahead. Why didn't you think of that before. Well, I don't bloody know, do I? I'm not, y'know, an idiot. Well, not completely, anyway. It seems like the sort of thing I ought to have figured out myself, but there I was catching flies in my mouth in my own kitchen (at 24 years old).
So judge me if you like, I probably deserve it. But ask yourself this question: what minor irritations in your life have solutions that you never considered? If this toast thing has shown me anything it's that a problem shared can be a problem solved, for good.
I'm not saying it's going to work on much more than the orientation of your bread products. My insomnia isn't going to have a 2 second solution, for example. But that isn't going to stop me seeking a further help, if I can't figure it out on my own. And I'm not going to keep putting up with minor irritations if I think someone might be able to provide an answer. Hell, if this toast fiasco has taught me anything it's that I have no reason to be proud about such things: I'm clearly not firing on all cylinders when it comes to fixing small miseries.
Better cheese on toast means a better existence generally. It's a damn good start.
