INEXPLICABLE OBJECT OF THE WEEK
Week of 5/7/00:
WEEK 108
TOAST PARTY!!
An 8-track player.
Yeah, it's hi-tech!
Well, 30 years ago it was, just like CD players were 15 years ago.
It's interesting to look around your house and think that at some point, ANYthing in it was once a technological breakthrough. In 1934, the most advanced device on the planet was something only the truly rich could afford:
The Pop-Up Toaster.
I'm not kidding when I call this a toy for the rich. One part of this booklet recommends using it "on Thursday when the maid is out." Wow, these rich jerks are so self-sufficient that they can make their own toast.
Once a freakin' week.
Yep. Buncha 1934 Bill Gates-type swells, dressed to the nines, settin' the swingin' high with a Toast Party.
A party. Where the centerpiece is toast.
The fun.
Yay.
"When you own a Toastmaster Hospitality Tray Set, your cocktail parties are an assured success...They simply help themselves to toast and to the tasty spreads contained in the beautiful Duncan Glass dishes, and go on their way praising your good taste and good providing...Guests actually enjoy making their own toast."
Yeah, just hope that the neighbors don't call in the cops, as your toast-drunk guests fling crumbs in orgiastic abandon.
"The real social arbiters in any home are the high school boys and girls. They know what's what and they demand the latest fashions in everything--including the serving of refreshments. Watch how they'll bubble over with pride when they show off your swanky Hospitality Tray Set to their crowd. And every day the whole family will enjoy the tantalizing toast that the Toastmaster Toaster prepares."
Wait--what's the thing make again? Toast maybe?
My only regret that this age of toasty innocence is long past is that no one uses the word "swanky" anymore.
And don't think that the kids are left out!
"Welcome, children! Join us in our black-skyed, desolate Boschian nightmare realm of toast, toast, TOAST!
JOIN US!"
CHRIST. No wonder it was called the Depression. This picture could only be more depressing if there were severed heads impaled on the spoons. In 1934, I guess the big box of Crayolas had 64 shades of tan.
And what the hell is that crawling out of those rusting barrels of toxic waste? Some hideous Scotty Dog/Sea Monkey mutant hybrid?
Goddamn rich brats. Flaunting their amazing powers of toast-making by giving a slice to a bird, rather than the starving toastless masses!
Let's see if we can pick out the Alpha Male in THIS group.
*CRUNCH*
"Yeah, Alfalfa, what I'm doing to this toast I can do to your head! Darla and Shirley are MINE, you mug! And I'll bet yer the louse what stole the bottom 6 inches off my tie!"
Inexplicable Link of the Week
A Very Different Kind of 1934 Toast Party (requires Quicktime)
Thanks to Gordon Kennedy, the Second Greatest Canadian Alive, for the link
Don't have Quicktime? Then find out The Truth About The Elian Raid
©2000 Bill Young