Top 5 problems with toasters

For too long, toasters have been coasting on their past achievements.

As a toast enthusiast, I love to eat the delightfully dry treat, but I am often frustrated by several extremely important issues surrounding toasters.

In order to help improve toasters and benefit humanity, our judges have put together this list of the Top 5 Problems With Toasters.

First, a few honorable mentions:

Their electric cords are way too short – Can’t the toaster companies spring for a cord that is longer than one or two feet? Why does the toaster have to be right next to the outlet?

They don’t usually spring up the toast up high like they do in the cartoons – That would be much more fun.

5. The name “Toaster” – First of all, the name “Toast” is kind of stupid if you think about it. The name comes from the Latin word “Toastum,” which means scorching or burning. You’re not eating the actual toasting or burning, what you are eating is toasted bread. You don’t call a baked potato just “baked,” or scrambled eggs just “scrambled,” so why is toasted bread just “toast”? It should be toasted bread. And to take it a step further, a toaster, or scorcher, should be a “bread toaster” or “bread heater.” You don’t call a popcorn popper just a “popcorner” after all.

4. They only have one purpose – Toasters are great for making toast and for maybe heating up Pop-Tarts (which too often burn in there), but after all of this time shouldn’t there by more uses for a toaster? Why not make it so I could heat up a slice of cold pizza in my toaster? Why can’t we warm up socks with them? Why don’t toasters now put butter or jelly on my toast, too?

3. They are too messy – It doesn’t matter if you are home, at work, at a hotel, in a restaurant or anywhere where there is a toaster, there will be plenty of crumbs in the bottom of the toaster. No one knows how long the crumbs have been there, and despite the recent advances in toaster technology, there’s no good way to get the bottom of the device as clean as you might like.

2. They don’t cook the bread evenly – Some toasters don’t cook the top of the bread enough, and others cook the crust more than the rest of the bread. Also, new toasters have plenty of different settings for how long to cook the bread and for different types of breads, but no one really knows how to use them. You either put the setting in the middle for regular toast or to the extremes for barely toasted or nearly burnt. Does anyone use the settings between the middle and the extremes? Who takes the time to figure that out? It’s just toast.

1. It’s too hard to get the toast out! – I hate it when toast gets stuck in the toaster, and it happens to me a lot no matter where I am toasting bread (I’ve been known to toast bread all over town). If you reach in to grab the toast, you risk burning your fingers, but if you stick a knife in to get the toast, you risk shocking yourself (I have done that several times and felt extra dumb each time). If you keep pulling the handle up and down to try to pop the toast out, it’s hard to catch the hot bread and you risk breaking the handle off (I’ve also done that several times). Finally, when you tip the toaster over to get the bread out, it usually works but you also dump old toast crumbs all over the counter and then you have to clean that up while your toast gets cold and crunchy. It’s very frustrating, and after it happens enough times, it makes you want to sit down and write a 600-word column complaining about toasters.