My Toast Always Jams
posted August 12, 1997

Q: My toast always jams in the toaster when it is supposed to eject. I have had this problem with many different brands of toasters. What is your recommendation?

Look forward to your reply,

– Broken toasted hearted ([email protected])

A: There is a common misconception about the processes that cause the ejection of toast from the toaster. Most believe this morning miracle is due to the sudden conversion of static potential energy (stored in coiled springs within the device), to dynamic kinetic energy, which manifests itself with the pleasant “sproing” of a successfully completed toasting cycle.

This explanation, of course, is completely ridiculous.

The truth is that each morning, your toast is abducted by aliens. Just as your toast is nearing crispy perfection on your countertop, alien spacecraft hovering high in the stratosphere send a powerful tractor beam into your kitchen that lifts the toast from the appliance. Then why, you ask, does the toast not float out the kitchen window, but rather appears to pause with about an inch of its tantalizing crust protruding from the toaster? That’s the precise moment at which the aliens cause a temporal disruption, a rift in the time-space-toast continuum. Time itself is halted in your kitchen, and the aliens are free to transport your breakfast into their secret laboratories without your knowledge. After the experiments are over, the toast is returned to your toaster at precisely the same moment it had disappeared. This creates the illusion that nothing out of the ordinary has happened, when in reality, your breakfast has suffered a severe temporal discontinuity!

So why exactly is your toast not ejecting from your toaster? I dunno, maybe it’s stuck or something.

– Dr. Toast