Sunbeam Toaster

In response to our friend Paul Lukas' post about his Sunbeam toaster, I offer the following:

My oldest friend in the world, who grew up in an Eichler, regaled me with stories of his family's magic Sunbeam toaster. I had to have one. 

Years later I finally found one at Thrift Town, and it was our first family toaster. You had to jiggle the toastiness setting sometimes to get it going, and finally we had to put it out of its misery. Then we got a *reconditioned* one at the Sunbeam store which was a thing that existed at that time. It had similar issues, but lasted us until 2005. An important advisory that *should* exist is that this is not the kind of toaster you use on bread that warps (i.e. thin pumpernickel). I turned my back on the toaster on New Year's Day 2005 and returned to find flames shooting out of it. I unplugged it, carried it into the back yard and emptied the hose into the one slice slot. I walked into the garage, where we had backups to every small kitchen appliance after my father-in-law died, found a toaster, and resumed toasting. I'm not sure where our current Sunbeam came from, but I love the ritual of jiggling the toastiness setting, and occasionally shaking the whole thing to get it to acknowledge my bread. 

Like Paul, I will also replace my Sunbeam when it cacks.