You've toasted your last toastie

Last night after a long weekend where we were well dined, well wined and feeling just fine, we decided to go the easy way out for dinner and make toasted sandwiches. Right in the middle of the melting of the cheese, my lovely wife dropped a bombshell:

'You know, maybe it's time for a new toastie maker?'

Goodbye my friend..

Damn, another piece of my history going the way of my rice cooker, cheap frying pans and Nokia 3310...


Yes okay, I see that it might be slightly old having being purchased back in...er...lemme think here..I reckon...2002 at a stab in the dark (oh dear..) . And yes I realize that it's had 12 bread toasting, cheese melting and filling singeing years, but it has history.

Not really a soul no, but some damn fine history.

I don't think my wife appreciates what I've thrown at it over the years as it's been the most dependable piece of kitchenware I've had since I first started burning down kitchens. It's never failed me when I was completely hungover, dead tired or in some cases well and truly stuffed from boozy family lunches. It's been thrown in the back of cupboards for 12 years, it's been dusted down and reused over the 12 years, it's survived countless house moves over that 12 years ago and if you gave it to someone in a lab coat, they'd probably make the amazing discovery that it still has atoms of cheese from the very first time I took it out of the box and gave it a spin.
Oh wait, that's probably not that good a selling point.

There's dinosaur fossils in this cheese!

Yes I know there's a couple of spots where the Teflon has flaked off and the cheese infused surface rust is now grilling away the melted butter on the outside of my sandwich creations but hey, if toastie makers could talk...actually it's probably best if this one didn't.

Okay, I get that technology has come in leaps and bounds since my rent was a low $75 a week and that the next one I get will somehow save a dolphin every time it fires up and play Enno Morricone's 'Ecstasy of gold' when it's all done, but it's not the same. It won't be the same Toastie. I was hoping that well my little bloke Jackson had kids, I could hand my toastie press down the generations and we'd laugh over grandads crazy adventures when cheese was $2 a kilo and petrol rained from the sky, all while munching on the finest Christmas leftovers toasted between two slices of bread.

Sigh, growing up sucks. My wife will want me to pay bills and things next...