The Big Question

Why are there toasters?
   I know that doesn't sound like such a big question, but think about it for a moment. Most of our appliances are designed to take something tedious, like washing dishes, and automate the task. A blender is just a mortar and pestle with a cord, a washing machine is a mangle you don't have to crank, a microwave is a really fast, nuclear oven.
   But what are toasters designed to replace?
   In other words, if you didn't have a toaster, how would you go about toasting bread? If you didn't have a blender you'd chop food up by hand and if you didn't have a washing machine you'd use the sink (or go down to the river). But if you didn't have a toaster, chances are pretty good you wouldn't figure out a way to make toast, you'd just do without.
   When I was a kid I saw a contraption Texas settlers used for browning bread over an open fire, it was a cage-like thing that clamped food - not just bread - inside. So they did have a way to char up yesterday's dinner rolls, and today you can pay too much for almost the same thing at Williams Sonoma and use it on your barbeque grill. They're great for fish, if you're in the market. But bread? I'm not so sure. Seems like more trouble than it's worth.
   It seems to me that modern toasters got popular with the invention of modern sliced bread. It's a new appliance for a new age, not to automate any previous task but to create an entirely new one, the modern breakfast. All the things we think of as a balanced breakfast - juice, toast, cereal, milk - are modern, made possible by changes to manufacturing, farming, and society during the second industrial revolution at the end of the 19th Century. New food, new habits, and a new society need new gadgets.
   Could you do without a toaster? Sure, same way you could do without a TV, a microwave, and a blow dryer. But what kind of life would that be?

The PuercoDrome

I have a friend who owns some land in Mexico, a rancho down in the Yucatan, where there is jungle; monkeys live in the jungle (monkeys, not apes: monkeys have tails, and no designs to take over for humanity after a nuclear holocaust). Among other business propositions, my friend raises pigs. So one day I got to thinking, which is always fun for me but sometimes not for others.
   My reasoning goes like this:
1. Until you sell them for slaughter, pigs aren't much fun. Sure, they eat a lot and they crap a lot and they sleep a lot, but those things aren't fun unless I'm the one doing them.
2. I remember seeing pig races at the Texas State Fair. That was fun. Those little piglets sure loved Oreos. But then again, who doesn't?
3. Why not have the pigs on my friend's rancho - pigs who are otherwise doing a whole lot of nothing until it's time to become pork chops - work for their room and board?
4. Since there are a lot of monkeys in the Mexican jungle we need to get them in on the action too. Any animal with thumbs is an animal that can work.
   So an idea formed in my brain: why not have pig races, like I saw at the Texas State Fair, but this time, since we had easy access to monkeys, we could have pig races with monkey jockeys.
   Think about it, an oval track, like a miniature Circus Maximus, where the pigs are racing for Oreos, and the monkeys are racing for honor. We could even dress the monkeys up in little cowboy costumes, or little jockey outfits, or even in Ben Hur period dress and re-enact the movie.
   When I tried to convince my friend that this was not only a fun idea it would be a money-making proposition, he didn't want any part of it. Wouldn't even entertain the idea, let alone make up blueprints, plan the stadium, or approach the bank about a small business loan. Trying to get sponsors to buy skyboxes was right out, too.
    Another of my beautiful ideas dies on the vine.
   But I haven't heard from my friend in a while, there's every possibility he's running pig races from a PuercoDrome in the middle of the Yucatan at this very minute.