Grief and my toaster

We have story events at Microsoft. Based on The Moth’s rules for five-minute stories on a common theme, these events picked up pace as we were working remote in 2020. Conceived and delivered as a spoken story, this is a slight adaptation of the story I told in October, 2020. The theme was inspiration.
This story originally appeared on LinkedIn in November, 2020.

I think my toaster might have saved my life. Let me know what you think.

My father died this summer — sad, but not tragic. The man was almost 94 years old and lived independently until the last few weeks of his life. He was a man of faith and told us a couple years ago he had lived a full life, he was ready to go at any time. Now my dad didn’t die of Covid, but he died during the time of Covid. So, any romantic notion I might have had of family being at his bedside through the days and hours didn’t happen. It was tough.

I know grief comes in waves but by the end, I felt alright. What I hadn’t realized was this summer had worn down my immunity system for grief.

Things that haven’t bothered me a lot — like the headlines, the times we live in, dropping my daughter off in Portland right during their worst air quality crisis — was really wearing me down. It wasn’t just the lack of sleep, the listlessness. I started feeling pains in parts of your body you shouldn’t be feeling pains. And my thinking — oh that was the worst — I was processing things unlike I have ever had in my adult life. I knew I was in trouble.

And that’s where my toaster comes in.

I love my toaster. A few years ago, we needed a new toaster oven. My dad had Consumer Reports, and I read Cooks Illustrated and there were a few other websites, and they all love this Breville model. It’s awesome. It does all the things a toaster oven should do really, really well. It’s even got a setting for cookies. Cookies! I’ve never owned anything with a cookie setting before. But the best thing is right next to the start button there’s another button and it’s labeled A BIT MORE. Talk about friendly user design.

Your toast isn’t toasty enough? Press a bit more.

Your leftovers aren’t as bubbly and gooey as you want? Hit a bit more.

It’s phenomenal design. It goes against the grain of common cooking. Cooking is about measurements, time, temperature, often precisely. But here you just look at your food and press the button. You can even hit the button before the cycle is over. Now it’s about 30 seconds for toast and a few minutes for leftovers. But you don’t even think about it. You just press the button.

Now, you don’t have to be a genius to realize that if you just keep hitting the button, your bread’s gonna turn into a burnt crisp. And that’s how I was feeling: burnt.

A bit more.

A bit more.

A bit more.

A bit more.

A bit more. A bit moreabitmoreabitmore.

And that’s when I think my toaster spoke to me. I was having breakfast and I heard this: I had analogy wrong.

I’m not the bread. I’m the toaster.

Humans are designed phenomenally; they can go against the grain of common thinking.

And almost immediately I felt better. Those pains went away, and my thinking cleared up.

Am I out of the woods yet? I don’t know. These things come in waves. But it’s something to ponder. Maybe over breakfast.

Just remember you’re not the bread. You’re the awesome toaster.