Toasters have always frightened me. That's a hell of a statement I know but how many times have you jumped when they have popped up unexpectedly? We have a particularly vicious toaster that pops so loud it can be heard as a rapport three miles away and makes small children cry. So in the interests of science I decided yesterday to confront my fears and instead experiment with the toaster to reduce the impact of the 'pop'.
The mechanism is quite simple, as soon as the sensor, basically a bi-metallic strip in my case, triggers it releases a catch on the compressed spring which returns to it normal uncompressed state by pushing up the small shelf holding the toast. Simple, the 'clunk' it produces is the metal on metal stopper so it should be a simple job of covering one or the other up to soften the clunk.
Well, lets just say that if you ever attempt this remember that things can catch fire. My new soften pop clunk was marred by a small bush fire as the softening agent, a tiny bit of soft wood decided to combust. Not surprising really, you know considering the wood / fire relationship but what else to use? Anyway, to cut a long story short I could find no easy way to alter it so instead decided to play with the spring.
Who would have thought that stretching the spring to nearly breaking point turns a toaster into a trebuchet? Our new high tension toaster or HTT for short now sounds like a shotgun and is quite capable of throwing toast through double glazing. Suddenly toasting has become more fun, no longer do I walk around pensively waiting for the clunk, now I'm giggling hysterically dodging toast rockets while the toaster sounds like a small war.
Toasting is now a serious past time and I make sure that I tie a handkerchief around my head, camouflage my face and put Ride Of The Valkyries on the iPod before I get out the toaster. Man, I love the smell of toast in the morning. So taking this theme I have also altered a few other pieces of kitchen equipment to create a combat kitchen experience. Placing boulders in the washing machine gives a pleasant rumbling effect that sounds like approaching tanks. Turn on all the gas hobs to full and throwing iron filings into them give the illusion of phosphorous explosions whilst attaching knives to an electric hand whisk creates a pleasing helicopter effect quite capable of removing limbs.
Advanced kitchen warfare involves tipping over the fridge so you can open the door and sit inside it trench like. Get other members of your family to hide in cupboards and drawers for example and become pretend snipers using saucepans as helmets and forks as bayonets. Use unpeeled potatoes as grenades and squirty cream as flame throwers. Fill the sink with water and sit in the washing up bowl for makeshift sea battles or coastal bombardment, frozen peas make great 10mm shells with which to bombard your fridge trench.
For the ultimate kitchen warfare though turn your kitchen into a jungle by hanging broccoli and bananas from the ceiling for foliage, scatter cabbage leaves on the floor and celery on the worktops. Turn on your oven an open the door to increase the heat, boil a kettle for a steamy atmosphere and set up various 'traps' in cupboards, such as spring loaded cheese knives and George Forman Grills on pendulums in high places to give a satisfying smash in the face when the door is open. Challenge friends and neighbours to take part in jungle kitchen warfare by issuing them with a colander helmet and a potato peeler weapon before locking them in the room for several days. Eventually they will search the drawers and cupboards for food or a key to let them out and experience the thrills of your hidden surprises and experience the horrors of kitchen combat first hand. Use a spare bedroom as a handy MASH unit for injured participants, masking tape and slices of tea cake make great emergency bandage and pads.
Form a 'squad' by convincing neighbours to do the same, turn lounges into deserts, bathrooms into Arctic conditions, bedrooms into bombed out bunkers the limit is your own imagination!
Visit www.myhouseisatipanditsallyourfault.co.war for more information and free 'Bathroom Battleship Conversion Kits' and how to make a toothpaste bazooka.
Seriously, I'm not really scared of toasters, I'm actually scared of spoons. There was this one time when I found out spooning has more than one meaning...
www.petersmithcollective.co.uk Home Of Foreverbunny and the Impossimals
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