The Hottest Toaster Around

You know how in "Entourage" the actors are constantly pulling up to the hottest bars, stores and restaurants in their fancy cars and clothes?

(For my most loyal reader--my mom--a brief description of the show: it's an HBO comedy about a group of Queens-born guys who follow their best friend to Hollywood as he becomes a famous movie star)

Well, when Tiffany and I were catching up on an old season last night, we saw a place we went to while we lived in Los Angeles in one of the scenes.

"Oh my god!" I said, as we sat on our couch. "There's the thrift store where we bought our toaster!"

"What?" Tiffany said. "Wow, you're totally right."

Of course, the actors didn't go into the thrift store. They just happened to be walking past it. But still, there it was.

We were both quiet for a minute, pondering what it meant, exactly, to have the thrift store where we bought our toaster appear--however briefly--on a hit television show. Or, for that matter, what it meant to have bought our toaster at a thrift store.

I looked past the TV into the kitchen. I could see the toaster on its shelf.

Every once in a while, Tiffany and I will look around at our furniture--the Goodwill chair, the hand-me-down couch, the store-bought (but discounted because of a dent) desk, the garage sale bookshelves, the gigantic now-years-outdated TV--and wish we had new stuff. Or, like, stuff that matched.

I could feel one of those times coming.

Sure enough, this morning we woke up and Tiffany was in full rearrange-the-living-room-mode which is almost always a sure segue into please-let's-buy-new-stuff mode.

"So, if we move the chair over here, that would open up this and really, we could buy a new chair and, you know, maybe a new smaller couch, which opens up this space here for a great new table..." she trailed off, looking at me.

"We could," I agreed.

We stared at our living room, thinking of all the other things we were saving for. Trips to see our family. Get-aways for ourselves. A house.

"Or we could wait," she said, putting her head on my shoulder.

"We could do that too," I agreed.

Then we moved everything in the room around. And it looked, you know, almost new.

A little bit later, I found I had a fond affection for the toaster as I made our toast while Tiffany made eggs.

I think Tiffany must have had a fond affection for the toaster too:

"What did you do to this piece of toast?" she said as she tried to extricate the piece of bread in the slot on the right.

"I had to smush it," I said. "It was the butt, and I had to make it fit."

"Well," she said, gently using a knife to pry the piece out. "Not at the expense of our toaster!"