Excellent replies! I learn more about people from these threads than from reading them bark at each other in the backroom. My house has had probably a half-dozen different toasters over the years. I'd suppose it would get annoying after a while, but it does take care of what to get for mother's day. We usually go for something that can handle long pieces of bread as well as bagels. Having to wedge a burning hot bagel out of a tiny toaster slot is not the way I prefer to get up in the morning, even if it is quite an effective way of getting the blood pumping. This was the worst when we had this silly "automatic" toaster that would raise and lower the bread by itself. It could never be trusted, and without a manual lever, getting bagels out was somewhat of an adventure. However, we had nothing like what happened with AdrianII. I think that Sicilian toaster was meant for somebody else, probably some goomba who forgot about his protection payments.

The family has 4 different preferences, so the dial gets moved a lot also. My mother prefers warm bread(of course), my father likes it slightly blackened, and my older brother burns the #$%* out of his toast, and then proceeds to cover it with a spray bottle of "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter". He must spray at least two dozen times on each piece. We started calling the stuff "Spray N' Wash" due to this habit of his. Being a bag-whelp at the nearby grocery store, I knew my grocery products and suggested that he try the cheaper, store-brand stuff called "Is It Butter?". He did not take me up on this.