Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Breakfast

I have a unique experience with breakfast everyday.

An experience cannot be unique when it happens everyday. Here's the thing: it is unique because it probably seldom happens elsewhere.

First of all, I make and eat breakfast at work, in the break room. Most of us do. Our office is in the city, and most of us live in the suburbs. We have some archaic kitchen devices to use. Have you ever seen a plain jane toaster give you the mental satisfaction of making toast, burning toast and making pancakes all at the same time?

Our toaster does it all and more. A judicious mix of perseverance, grogginess and lack of enthusiasm to get to work is what keeps us all going to the poor toaster everyday, though the toaster begs retirement. So, this is how is starts:

1) We pop in the bread, and select the darkness level.
2) Twiddle your thumbs and wait (maybe I'll time this one day)
3) It pops noisily and the bread slides back into the toaster (yep it does)
4) You lift the toaster and shake it upside down to extricate the slice of bread
5) It is either too light or too dark, and only 1 side is toasted.
6) This is where you get the pancake feeling because you have to flip the toast and wait for the other side to get done!
7) Depending on the result in step (5), you adjust the darkness level
8) Repeat steps (2) through (4)
9) It is either too dark or too light now
10) End result doesn't matter because the taste would cancel out the burnt portion and not toasted enough sides of the toast

That, with a hot cup of coffe somehow nudges the old brain awake, and I start work!

6 comments:

Mad Max said...

@ Saumya: nice description...looks very similar to writing up simulation algorithms for our papers...hehe...even the end result mind you...hehehe

Suresh Sankaralingam said...

Nice one... Reminds me of microwave ovens and heating shifts at my previous work place.. The worst thing is that some people literally cook their food... Imagine the smell of fish+beef+chicken+sambhar sadham+poriyals, all mixed together...These days, we have 3-4 microwave ovens...

Survivor said...

Well written. I guess if you are hungry, anything tastes good :-)

sdpal said...

I guess, you wouldnt want to have your own toaster, to miss this entertainment daily.. :-)

Manohar said...

@saumya: Is it just me or is that an enless loop... ???

BrainWaves said...

If you are talking about "Repeat Steps 2 to 4", then it is function call and called totally 2 times.. so not a endless call :)

Bagel in Toaster tests my patience more than keena does!