Red Toaster

 

It takes me five and a half hours of solid shopping to find the red toaster. So much guilt. So much heart-searching. So much remorse. And finally red!

It makes me smile to see how I invest my time and money.

Yesterday I returned 240 dollars of clothing to Kohls department store. A woman with strawberry blonde hair explained she can give me money back on all except 46 dollars. I get store credit for that. Oh what the hey, I decide to wander down the store credit path. I saunter over to look at their waffle-makers. Now: I have specific expectations from a waffle-maker, so, I am astonished to find they don't have what I want: removable waffle plates, waffle plates that turn into a griddle, and, of course, a gorgeous outer casing. After twenty minutes of wandering from one incomplete waffle maker to another, I ask one of the shop assistants for help. She is about to disappear into the distance with a woman who has a George Forman Grill issue: "Can I ask you a question before you go? Are you coming back here?"

"I don't know," she says, "I have to take care of business."

"This is business too," I counter, "But if you don't have time..."

"Why don' you tell me?" she says, "Maybe I can be thinking about the answer when I'm gone."

"OK. Don't you have a waffle-maker with removeable plates that can turn over into plain griddle plates?"

"No. I can answer that. We only have the Cuisinart, the Farberware, and the Black and Decker. They're over by the toasters."

She looks at me. I look at her. She needs to go and she's waits.

"OK. One more thing... (I pause) What do you think of Black and Decker?" I had seen a Black and Decker waffle-maker in KIng Soopers. It had removeable and convertible plates.

She hesitates. "They're OK," she says. "I mean. They're OK if you ... I ... They make so many different kinds of things..."

I get it.

"Yes. OK. Well, thanks very much."

I turn away and she (with her incredibly patient customer) walks off to the checkout.

So, I still have this store credit. OK. I recently formed the idea of buying a new toaster. The toaster I have has a crack in the carbonized plastic casing. (I don't really know if the plastic is carbonized, but that's how all the new toasters describe their plastic casings.)

I decide to glance over their spectrum of toasters. This part of the day takes one and three-quarter hours. Interspersed with detailed inspection of features and comparision of heating filaments are a few strolls back to the wafflemakers just to reassure myself that no; they do not have removeable plates. Just checking.

 Sure enough, the Black and Decker toasters at Kohls are boring. They are boring to look at and their functions are boring too. I look at the high-end toasters. I finally reject the white Kitchen Aid in favor of the black and silver Krups with blue LED. I tell you the Krups toaster can do anything. All the new cool toasters have the bagel feature: This feature "toasts the inside side half of the bagel slice and only warms the outer bottoms." It can defrost a frozen waffle and toast it too--with one button. Other settings allow you to toast shorter pieces of bread, to toast pastries, to do the bagel magic (of course), and--the ultimate cool thing--it has a removeable warmer plate that sits on top of the toaster. It keeps your pancakes warm.

 As well as a blue LED, it has blue pictures of pieces of toast of varying shortnesses. It is the most expensive two-slice toaster in the store. I love Krups coffee-makers. They have service centers that can send you replacement parts. Krups is not in the business of making throwaway products. Despite a wee misgiving about the dark, Germanic look of the thing and also a bit because of the dark, Germanic look of the thing, I pocketed it and padded over to the checkout desk. Relief was in sight.

 Surprised I am--to see again the strawberry-blonde (with one-eighth inch of light brown root growth) lady at the checkout.  At the checkout, she says reassuring things about Krups. "Oh, yes. They are a good make. At home, I only have Krups or Cuisinart," she says.

 The time is 5:40 PM. Cody sits in the car. Imitate the sphinx, he does. He is so cool. (He knows and I know that there is a 33-pound back of his favorite dog food in the trunk. I take care of first things first.)

 I feel haunted. Perhaps I can still find a wafflemaker that will perform my every wish. (It's impossible--I know--but a chap can dream."

 "OK, Cody. Let's go to King Soopers."

 King Soopers is two parking lots north. A slick shell of packed snow covers the places in the lots where you step out of your car. I feel grateful for my hiking boots. I put my full weight behind each forward step.

 I march past the Valentine-turned-into-Easter flower displays. Well, I stop. I admire a 16-dollar blue-glazed pot. It is big for the price. I remember the days when I wanted a pot like that.

 I find the Black and Decker waffle maker. It has a silver casing. The non-stick coating around the clips that hold the plates in place is scraped to show silver below. I don't like the look of the heavy coil of chrome that seems to hold the top and bottom part together. I hear the words of the lady in Kohls... "... make so many different kinds of things..." I put the Black and Decker back in it's packaging. It looks so...mechanical.

 I give Cody a nice kissy hug when I get back to the car. Why can't dogs come into stores. I bet in the old days when women were out gathering for nuts, berries, and turnips, their dogs padded right along side them.

 We drive across the road and round the corner to Walmart. Walmart makes me happy in one stroke. They have solid chocolate Cadbury's bunnies. I buy two and a couple boxes of Cadbury's creme eggs. Thank goodness for british chocolate. Thank goodness for spring...

 They don't have wafflemakers though. They have tiny toasted-sandwich-makers and about fifteen kinds of electric George Colman grills and a quesadilla maker. The quesadilla maker is red.

 Walmart also has twenty-five varieties of toaster: all cheaper than the one I bought at Kohls. I feel lost. 

 The Oster toaster, at only 28 dollars, does everything that the Krups can do. It just doesn't have the warming plate.

 It also has slanted sides in ruby (metallic-car-body) red. I love it on sight.

 I flounder in my swamp of consumer blood-lustfor some moments. To stall for time, I turn over every toaster. Yes. All are made in China. What's a chap to do?

 A couple in their late twenties comes up to the toasters. They walk back and forth for a few minutes. I step back out of politeness. They pick up a 20-dollar Black and Decker toaster that has the bagel function.

 I recognize that they come from India. I have Indian friends that I met working in high tech. Besides, I never met a stranger so I join in the discussion of the Black and Decker (just as if I worked for Walmart). I tell them about the expensive piece of German engineering I bought at Kohls.

 "But here," I say, "they have so many choices. Look at this Oster for 28 dollars. They have it in red too. [The man in the couple makes a face.]Well, maybe you're right. Do you really need to have a toaster that matches your lipstick? [They laugh.]That one looks really nice. I like that silver pearl accent."

 We all look at the Black and Decker. The man says, "It's only for once in a month. It's not something to use all the time."

 "Then that's a good deal," I say.

 "I like this one," the wife says. She's wearing a burgundy wool sweater wrapped tight by her arms. The man wears a zip up sage green knitted jacket.

 I wander off again. They start looking at the Oster and the GE toasters.

 I wander back shortly and say, "You know. You are making me think again about that Black and Decker."

 The husband picks up the Black and Decker again. We all look at it.

 "It's got everything you need," I say.

 The husband points to the Oster with its pastry and its defrost function. "This is good for the frozen waffles," he says.

"Frozen waffles," I say. "I thought you said you'd use it only once a blue moon."

 He says, "Well, it's... This might be once in two months."

 We fall silent. Then I say, "You should just get the Black and Decker. It looks nice. It does the job. And when you've made your fortune in America and go back to India, you can throw it away."

 They laughed out loud, showing wide smiles. I decide I have probably said enough.

 So I say one more thing, "Well, the only thing about the Black and Decker. It's not got the stainless steel casing. It's plastic. It's not so robust."

 They have their heads together over the black and silver Oster now.

 I decide that this was fun. "Anyhow, I'll leave you to it. Good luck."

 "Bye" they say.

 I walk away. I can't believe how much I want to know which toaster they end up buying.

 I pay for my chocolate bunnies and drive off into the night. The night, it turns out, is still young.

 I drive away from Walmart into the Twin Peaks Mall parking lot. I circle the mall enough to see that the big store, Dillards, is closed. This is when I get a message from the mother ship. Do I have to buy something because I get a store credit? What is that about anyway? I decide to go back to Kohls and return my Krups toaster.

 I walk into the store. I take a path that avoids the woman with strawberry color hair. Somehow when I get to the Customer service desk, she is there. Not behind the desk, just standing in line to buy a cuddly toy with a pink face that might pass for a bunny on some planet where bunnies have heads five times the size of their legs and bodies. "I had to buy this guy. I've been looking at that guy for the past four weeks. Then I thought they were all gone. But I found him."

 The woman in front of me says, "Oh, I know. I couldn't work here. I'd buy him too. I'd buy everything."

 It's good that she is there. She explains to the lady behind the desk that the computer refused to give me my money back earlier and now I want to return the thing I bought for the store credit. "You're bringing that back, now," she says, with a question in her voice. "You just bought it."

 "I went to Walmart. They have twenty-five toasters and they're all cheaper than this one. Besides, when I bought those clothes, I made a point about asking about returns. Nobody said anything about store credit."

 I look at the silver-blonde woman behind the desk. She is slender. She wears wedding rings. (Is everybody in the world married? I ask myself with a moue.)

 "What do you want me to do?" she says.

 The strawberry-blonde woman has more substance to her figure. She says, "You can run it again, but it'll probably come up with the same thing because it was bought with a store credit."

 I look at them both.

 The slender woman runs it through the computer. "No," she says, "It's asking me for your driving licence again. It wants to give you the store credit. It thinks it's a debit card transaction."

 "No, it was a VISA," says the strawberry blonde.

 My transactions were with a debit card. For some reason, stores regard debit cards as more suspect. (The Machievellian credit card companies carry respectability--what with their well-known ability to bludgeon the unwary into financial ruin.) Anyhow, I don't let this stop me.

 "Isn't there some way to reverse this. I brought back the things I bought. I don't see why I should have to buy something else just because of your computer. Is there a manager I could speak with? Is there something that can be done?"

 "The manager won't be able to do anything," says the strawberry blonde. "She might be able to call someone, but..." She sounds dubious.

 I just stand there. The slender woman behind the desk calls a manager and says a customer wants to speak to a manager. I stand there. I compose my face into an innocent expression that is open to see what happens. I hear snatches of the conversation "process it as a store credit... take it from there..." I notice a camera in the corner of the alcove that contains the customer service desk. i maintain my expression of simple openness. No trace of irritation travels from my mind to my face. She puts the phone down.

 "We can give you a store credit," she says, "and then you can exchange that for cash from our 'customer payout' drawer. We've never done it like this before. The manager says it's OK."

 I think about the inconvenience of having cash in my pocket. I want the money to go back into my bank. I smile at her. "That's great," I say. "Thanks very much." She folds the money into my palm. "Thanks a lot!" I say.

 Back in the car, I discuss the status quo with Cody again--as if he has a say. I am a cruel shopping goddess incarnate.

 We drive up Dry Creek Road to Nelson. Without conscious thought, I turn right at Nelson, and head for Target. I spare you all the reasons I love Target. Their brand mark is a red and white bullseye.

 I walk into Target at 7:05. I still hold my heart open for the possibility of the perfect wafflemaker. And yet, I walk under the guilt of four and a half hours fruitless shopping. I walk under the responsibility of my position at the peak of human civilization.

 In the kitchen wares aisle at Target, I feel surprise. Here is a whole new raft of toasters. They have Osters that are a warm red and more rounded than the ones at Walmart. They have copper-toned Oster toasters too. They have all the bells and whistles a person could want in a toaster. They even use eggbox-style packing material in the boxes. (Polystyrene balls are hostile to the environment. I would like to support the eggbox trend, but in the end, I don't.)

 This is nice. I bask in this for about six minutes. I see even more different Black and Decker toasters, even more General Electric toasters. I even see a red Kitchen Aid toaster. It's not the ruby red or the vermilion red of the Osters. It's the same deep red of the blood that goes back to the heart.

 It doesn't have all the bells and whistles and it costs 50 bucks. It has the bagel function and it has a simple, elegant line. I can see it in my kitchen. I look back at the Osters, but there is no competition. I pick up the red Kitchen Aid.

 On my way to the checkout, I pass the candle aisle. I remember that I have a three-inch wide candle holder that I want a candle for. I stop. I look. I sniff and smell. The candles are all made in Vietnam. I want a green candle that smells like honeydew melon. The green ones are cucumber mint or sonoma pear. The sonoma pear is OK. I choose an expensive three-shades of pink, three-aroma candle. The label on the bottom says it is Plumeria Lychee/Sun blossom/Vanilla Jade. A half-inch long hexagonal bead of golden metal hangs at the end of the three-inch long wick. The bead has calligraphic markings on it.

 The man at the checkout is in his early twenties. He has cropped, gelled, bleached hair and a ring in his left ear. The transaction goes well. I breath with serenity--till I remember I have cash.

 "Can you reverse that?" He has just processed my VISA card.

 "No, but we can void it," he says.

 I breathe again. I hand over the cash. I notice how the extra money from the Krups refund buys me the candle. I smile. I am almost home. I say goodnight with good cheer. "Have a good evening." "You too," the checkout guy salutes me on my way.

 I'm home now. It is 8:05. I unpack the toaster. It stands against the painted red wall in my kitchen. It interupts nicely the line of white tile that goes round the edge of the countertop.

 I stand back and look. I am glad. The red toaster anchors my kitchen in a way that I like. I look at my burgundy-red Kitchen Aid blender. I look at my burgundy-red Kitchen aid pots that sit on the stove. I look at my burgundy-red Kitchen Aid toaster. I think I did OK.

 I put the candle on the dining table next to the pink roses I bought for my daughter and me on Valentines day. I think about lighting the candle but I don't. It already smells nice. I like to see it in my living room.

 I put Tibetan prayer music on the stereo. I heat up some ratatouille and melt some mozzarella in it. I toast two halves of a ciabatta roll using the bagel function. It works nice.

 When I sit down to eat dinner, I feel already replete. I can smell my three-shades-of-pink candle. I can see my red toaster. It adds gravitas to my kitchen, I swear it does.

 Was it Dolly Parton who sang: "Sometimes it's hard to be a woman." She is so right. At the same time, she is so wrong.

 I turn on the television. The second last episode of Bleak house is playing on PBS.

Next morning I make a huge buckwheat pancake. It's so huge that I cut it in half. I know I want to heat the other half later. Wouldn't it be nice, a wicked spirit whispers in my ear, wouldn't it be nice to have a warmer plate on your toaster?