How trashy ARE we?!

There's a toaster oven in my front yard. It's been there since Sunday. Today is TUESDAY. Yes, I am master of the obvious.

[NEW PARAGRAPH--See--I can learn!]

Where was I? Oh yeah--Tuesday. Toaster Oven. Here's the thing--most human beings don't store their household appliances in their front yards (driveway to be exact). Of course, non-human beings don't HAVE household appliances (or HOUSES for that matter) to store ANYWHERE, but that's a conversation for a later date. OUR toaster oven is in the front yard because on Sunday morning, it fought back.

The T.O. (that's what I'm calling it, though probably not consistently--fair warning!) is not even a year old--my son bought it for me for Christmas last year (or, my son made my husband buy it for me...you get it) and he was SOOOO pleased with himself. The toaster we were using burnt everything and looked like it would blow up at any time. It only "popped" when it felt like it, and then it would only do it when we least expected it to. THEN it would shoot the bread out at us like a soldier combatting enemy fire. That toaster needed to be put down for good. It never spent any time in the front yard.

The thing is, I don't particularly LIKE toaster ovens. If I want to toast my toast in an oven, I'll use THE OVEN. My son, however, was so very proud of his purchase--there was (and IS) no way I was going to tell him that I didn't absolutely LOVE it. I don't really use it too often. Half the time we have things piled on top of it (which never seems to phase my husband who goes right on toasting with the papers on top waiting to catch fire) and it is under the cabinets which are just DYING to go down in flames. I've even cleaned it a few times (which I can't really say about the demon toaster we '"let go" last year). Which leads me to WHY it is in the front yard.

On Sunday morning I decided to use the T.O. I took everything off the top, cleared the counters around it, put the bread in and turned the button to the "toast the toast" picture. I was in the middle of a psychotic episode over how many people were following my blog, so when the beeper went off, I thought I would just leave it and warm it up if I needed to when I finished "blogging." That IS what I'm doing, right? Blogging? We'll get into "tweeting" another day. Anyway, seconds later, the smoke detector "detected" a problem and when I ran to see, the T.O. was ON FIRE. I called to my husband who was frantically opening and closing the door to get the smoke out (he just assumed I had burnt another meal). I didn't panic, which kind of worried me--I mean, wouldn't you panic if there was a fire in front of you?  I simply watched the toast melt in the flames that engulfed the inside of the oven and calmly asked, "Well, what should we do?" The answer? Unplug it and take it out to the front yard where it will sit until...?

I feel like we put the T.O. in time out (HA-T.O. in T.O. get it? I need a life!) because it was naughty. It did after all try to KILL us. The last toaster went right to the garbage and that was it, but this one is forced to face the shame of sitting in the driveway where all of the neighbors can see how BAD it was. Either that, or I have to face the fact that we are now white trash and the inside of our house is now throwing up on the outside of our house. WE are the people who just don't get around to picking up ANYTHING around our house--the people who make homeowner's associations crawl into the fetal position and rock back and forth. Some of you may have even BEEN in our homeowner's association, so YOU know. I'd much prefer to think that we haven't yet come up with an appropriate punishment for our T.O. and when we do...we'll probably bring it to the BACK yard. It will blend in with the broken grill and deflated pool toys. At least then there won't be a toaster in my front yard.