Nicely toasted

I really like toast. But it has to be toasted exactly right, too burnt and it's just wrong, not enough and it's just, well, bread. The word itself derives from the Latin tostare, meaning to "roast". But our modern use of the word comes from the old French word around 1398 and literally means, "to brown with heat". Enough history though, toast is great, end of story. So yesterday I was making myself a spot of lunch, I was having a fried egg and mushroom sandwich since you ask, and I like to toast my bread for my sandwich. The main reason for this is that when you're using a filling like an egg, which obviously has a liquid centre, plain bread can often break up under the pressure of the egg yolk. Some might say the bread just soaks it up, I say "No! Soggy bread is wrong!"

So I've put the toast in the toaster, my mushroom are done and my egg is just finishing itself off. Now I have quite a cheap(Argos) frying pan, it's non stick that isn't that non stick, so I'm delicately trying to free the egg from the grasp of the pan when I hear the toast ejaculate from its fiery pit. Unfortunately this excites me so much that I create a slight tear in my yolk, and yellowy goodness begins to spread over the pan. Thinking quickly I abandon the egg, goto the toaster, throw the toast on a plate and spin round with said plate back to the frying pan. As I do so I hear the sound of one of the pieces of toast fall off my plate, 'no worries' I think, I'll retrieve it in a minute.

So I manage to free the egg, get it on my toast with the mushrooms and I now go to get the other bit of toast. I search all around the toast. No toast. I look to the floor. No toast. I even went out into the hallway. No toast. I was beginning to get a little concerned for two reasons, one, my egg and mushrooms were getting cold, and two, that was the last of the good bread as I only had end pieces left. Things were getting serious.

After standing in the middle of the kitchen I decided my only option was to think like the toast. Maybe then I could find out where it had gone. So I stood by where I had last seen the errant slice, and imagined myself flying off the plate as I had spun around. Crouching onto the floor I examined the surrounding area. No toast. So I did the experiment again, maybe it hit a cupboard, went in the opposite direction and ended up in an open drawer. But, alas, no toast.

It had seemed that the toast had been swallowed up by a black hole and transported into the fifth dimension. Just my luck. Begrudgingly I took an end piece and ate my sandwich thinking about my lost slice and how lonely it must be. Mind you, I'm not a fan of cold toast anyway, so maybe it was for the best.