Thanksgiving and the Toast Situation

November twenty-second. I want to be clear that I was not attempting anything ambitious. No pie, no biscuits from scratch, no elaborate casserole with three components. I was making toast. One piece of bread, in the toaster I have owned for two years without incident, while the coffee was still brewing. That is the full scope of what I was attempting at eight-fifteen on Thanksgiving morning.

I don't know what I did differently. I pressed the lever the same way I always press the lever. I walked six feet to the counter to check my phone. By the time I looked up there was a smell, and by the time I processed the smell there was smoke, and by the time I processed the smoke the toast was, I want to say 'overdone' because I think that's the generous framing, but the word my brain produced was 'carbonized.'

the defendant

I fanned it out the window with a dish towel for approximately four minutes, which is a very long time to stand at a window on a cold November morning in leggings, and I was aware the whole time that if any of my neighbors happened to be looking up, this was the image they were getting of me on a holiday.

The apartment smelled like a cautionary tale until noon. I made oatmeal. I photographed the toast because I felt the blog deserved evidence, and also because I needed someone, even a hypothetical future reader, to understand that this happened to me on the day I was supposed to feel competent and domestic and thankful. I am thankful. I am also the person who burned toast on Thanksgiving morning while standing six feet away from it.

ventilation efforts, ongoing

I keep thinking about the comment on the old post, the username I don't recognize, the specific detail that proved they'd read carefully. I haven't replied. I haven't told anyone. I just keep picking it up and putting it back down, the way you do with something you're not sure is fragile. Today felt like a day to let that sit and just be here, in the smoke-smelling kitchen, eating oatmeal, watching the collapsed bowl and the little letterpress card on the windowsill catch the gray November light. It's enough. It's a good day.