The Toaster by Laszlo Kugler (best e book reader for android TXT) 📕

The Toaster

The place... 13 Blythwood Lane.

The house... Probably late eighteen hundreds, dilapidated.

Occupants... The McCrumbs. Eunice is sixty nine. Elwood, eighty four years old.

“Eunice! Where's that beer? And this dang water's getting cold. Did you take a bath?”

“No...you know the heating is too old. It can't keep up.”

“Yes, yes, the house is old...I know. And so is your mother. The beer, Eunice.”

“Coming as fast as I'm able to, dear. Hold on. Yes the plumbing's old. So is the furnace...shoulda been updated years ago.”

Lord...he complains just 'bout everything. The toast is burnt or if it's not, it's not toasted enough...barely warm. The water comes out of the taps rusty. The grass needs cutting. There's noise almost every week-end emanating from St. Patrick's Cemetery next to our home. The police should post a guard to keep the local kids out of there. This goes on all day long. Besides that Elwood is going senile...can't wait for it to be full blown. How much worse can it get?

“The beer, woman. I'm dying of thirst,”yells Elwood as he exhales a huge billow of cigar smoke, stinking up not only the bathroom but the whole two floors of this old house.

“Coming,”she answers. If he just stopped bitching for one day, just one day, I would probably think I were dead, and have gone to heaven.

Last year, Elwood complained about the unusually hot weather, and how it burned all the grass. This year it was much too rainy. The grass grew too quickly for his own taste. Made for too much mowing. Although Eunice cuts it more often than he does. Every Saturday he would step out to get the newspaper which happened to be not there. Eunice would remind him that there was no delivery on week-ends in this town. So he complained about that too. He even complained in his sleep.

Last December when his old age pension check was one day late, he phoned the bureau and made a big stink about that. How dare they...after all he paid his dues.

“Elwood, there's a real estate agent from Murdoch & Clint at the door. He want's to know if we would be willing to sell the house. He says that there's a wealthy developer interested in it. What should I tell him?”

“Tell him to get lost. This property has been in my family for over two centuries. My grandpa died in it. My dad died in it too. I will die in it before I'd think of sell it. Tell him that.”

Eunice returned downstairs, and asked Mister Farquharson for his business card. She tucked it away in a safe place. A place where she stashed away half of her own government money each month. Elwood was too stupid to ever realize that. After all, it was her pension money...right? She was saving it for a rainy day. No new dress has been in her closet for at least twenty five years. The last one was purchased at a thrift store for five dollars. He would notice a new dress instantly, and the complaining would reach up to heaven.

“Is he gone?”

“Yes dear.”

What worried Eunice most was that at her age she will be loosing her mind too...maybe never as fast as her husband, but nevertheless she would eventually...and then the money she stowed away would be useless, or even totally forgotten. It was at that point she remembered that she had bought a new toaster a month ago and hid it, worried what Elwood would say.

An idea fell on her like a brick. She could pretend it was Elwood's birthday. He can't even remember what day or year it was, so she went into the bathroom and lied. “Oh, I almost forgot. It's your sixty-eighth birthday, dear.” In reality he will be eighty four coming September.

“What? When?”

“Tomorrow. I also got you a gift.”

“A gift? What is it? Bring it to me now. I won't wait till tomorrow; now that I know about it.”

“It's a toaster. What you always wanted,” she lied again. This was fun, she thought. “You know how you hate the old one. You complain about it every morning. 'The toast is burnt. The toast is barely hot'. So, I got you a deluxe model with five settlings for bread and more. Plus a setting for bagels.”

“Go get it now, and bring me another brew. This water is getting colder by the second. Maybe after you bring me my present, you can heat up a kettle of water to warm up this miserable bath.”

“Ok,” she said as she hurried off giggling to herself.

In no time Eunice was back with the box containing the new toaster. It was a Restinghouse Super Deluxe XXX. The best the store had to offer.

Elwood looked somewhat pleased until he said, “What? No gift wrapping or bow? Never mind. Unwrap it...my hands are too wet.”

She did, and laid it on the bench near the tub.

“Nice appliance. Now go get that kettle of water, and hurry up about it before I get pneumonia.”

“I have an idea, dear. Since this toaster is the top of the line, I'm sure you can warm up your bath water with it. See there, it has a setting just for that. I told you it was a Restinghouse Super Deluxe XXX, didn't I? It says right here on the box 'good up to thirty feet of water'. You never know what they'll come up with next? Technology!”

“You sure?”

“Of course, would I lie to you?” “And, while you are finishing your beer and stogy, I'll be off to see Wanda.”

“That witch? Isn't she whose husband fell off the ladder and broke his neck while cleaning the eaves last spring?”

“Yes, that her. Don't wait up for me, dear. I might be a tad late tonight. We will be watching Desperate Housewives. Last episode. Oh, before I forget, I'll plug in your gift. There you go, within your reach. Enjoy the warm water. Bye for now.”

Not ten minutes later, she was practically skipping down their old walkway to the street below. The half moon, minding it's own business, shone brightly that night. As she was ready to turn left onto Frog Hollow Lane and head east to her good friend Wanda, she happen to look back towards the house. It was  when a flash of blue light appeared for just a split second from the upstairs bathroom window...and then the whole house was thrown into darkness.

“Oh goodness me! There goes another fuse,” Eunice smiled, but she kept on walking.

Publication Date: 03-16-2016

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