During a visit to her mother in the hospital, Janet stopped by the cafeteria early one morning for breakfast. She hadn’t had her coffee yet, her eyes were still half-shut, and she was operating purely on muscle memory.
She grabbed a slice of bread and approached the industrial conveyor toaster — the kind that looks more like it belongs in a factory than a cafeteria. She set the bread on the moving rack and waited patiently, watching as it slowly disappeared into the metal mouth.
Janet stood. And waited. And waited some more.
After a full minute, she muttered, “How long does it take to toast bread in this hospital? Is it being healed first?”
Still no toast. People around her began to watch in quiet curiosity.
A nurse behind her whispered, “You know that’s a two-sided toaster, right?”
Janet blinked. “A what?”
The nurse smiled. “The toast doesn’t come back to you. It exits on the other side.”
Janet whipped around. Sure enough, her lonely slice of bread had made its full journey, been perfectly toasted, and was now resting in a bin on the far end, being carefully admired — and buttered — by a man who thought it was a gift from above.
“That’s my toast!” Janet cried, rushing over.
The man looked up, half-buttered toast in hand, and said, “I just thought it was the universe finally giving something back.”
They compromised. He gave her half the toast, and she got a valuable lesson in hospital appliance orientation.
Moral of the story: Always know which way your toast is going — in cafeterias and in life.
