Retrospect: D and the toaster

Self-tutoring about people and events from the past: the tutor mentions a fond one.

My maternal grandparents inhabited, in the 70s, the old, stately house whence their children had moved out. It only had three bedrooms and a den, but the bedrooms were double or triple the size of typical ones I see today, as was the kitchen.

Said kitchen had counters running along two of its four walls, with a long table in its center. The toaster was set up in the middle of the counter spanning one of the long walls. D, my uncle, sat with his back to the toaster.

I remember, when we would be having breakfast while visiting there, D always turning back to fetch toast when the toaster popped. He would butter it (with real butter), then keep it if it was his, or pass it along to whoever else’s it was. It was a charming, reassuring status-quo that one would enjoy watching. How automatic and natural it was suggested it was meant to be.

One time I overheard two adults talking about it. One spontaneously pointed out that D must sit there because he ate so much toast. The other thought otherwise: that D sat there because, being young and tall, it was easy for him to turn, fetch the toast without getting up from his seat, and pass it along. Anyone else in the family, they observed, would have had to get up to fetch the toast each time.

The difference in perceptions continued: the first person believed D ate most of the toast produced, while the second person believed most of the toast he fetched was destined for other people. I was around seven years old when I overheard this friendly conversation, but even then I was surprised how two long-time observers of such a situation could interpret it so differently. My own point of view areed, and continues to agree, with the second person’s.