kogepan

i want to tell you about the toasters.

it's been a few years now since the kind folks at bigrig industries invited us over for the night of the toaster. the reverend, the clown and myself made sure to select only the finest, two or four slotted chrome gilted toasters that we could find. these were toasters of the gods. these were toasters for the people.

the rendezvous point turned out to be one of the many loud but friendly pubs that are scattered around this fine city of san francisco. the bigrig reps sat with a map at one of the tables - a pitcher waxed and waned, depending on whether the waitress was nearby. their map was dotted with various circles, x's and other markings which indicated what territory the other toaster distributors were claiming. another bigrig rep stood off to the side giving out tips on how to make sure that the toaster would stay where you wanted.

"the best way to do it is to bring some of the super bonding glue that comes in two separate tubes," she said, holding up a two-tubed contraption that resembled a hollywood representation of a bomb component. "you apply the glue to the bottom of the toaster and stick the toaster to the wall, floor or wherever. now the trick to making sure that the glue bonds really well is to make sure that you apply pressure to the toaster for at least five minutes. since you don't want to be standing around for longer than absolutely necessary, this is where the duct tape comes in..." she lifted a roll of duct tape out of her bag of many tricks. "if there's anything that you absolutely must have, it's duct tape."

we all nodded knowingly at each other. of course. duct tape. who would possibly argue its usefulness?

"so as the adhesive is setting, you strap the toaster onto the lightpole or whatever you're sticking it to with duct tape and voila! you're on to your next target!"

wow... simple as that.

so there we stood - myself and the clown and the reverend, ready to present our toasters to the world. we walked up to the mapkeeper and gave him our destinations.

"we want to get a billboard that's at south van ness and division," i told him. he made an x at the intersection indicated.

"anywhere else?" he asked, looking up at me. looking up at my toasters.

"yes... we want to get the wonderbread factory."

"ahhhh... yes... very nice," he said, looking up at me again and eyeing our ragtag gang. he made a mark at 15th and bryant and sent us on our way.

the hostess factory is a strange, silent behemoth in my neighborhood. nestled in an industrial part of the mission district, the giant, windowless building always has the strange smell of creme filling oozing out of it. you wouldn't think that an odor could ooze until you walk past this building - there's something a little bit disturbing about it.

there we were, myself, the reverend and the clown, standing in the thickness of that smell, looking up and down the street for any suspicious looking do-gooders. i would have liked to compare our little trio to a steathly renegade attack unit, but we were just three people in the dark carrying epoxy, duct tape and a toaster. nothing to see here, random citizen. move along, move along.

when we arrived at the building, it occurred to us that the featureless, concrete building was so featureless that there really wasn't anything to adhere the toaster to. concrete just didn't seem like it would make a good bond and what little glass available was within view of tiny, black security cameras looking intently at a very small, concentrated area. bryant street was pretty much deserted which somehow managed to make us feel even more jumpier than we should have been. who knows what kind of jimmy stewart rear window character was peering at us from his paranoid fantasies? in retrospect, i suppose it wouldn't really be paranoia since we were actually up to a bona-fide no good situation.

we attempted to walk inconspicuously around the factory, holding our household appliance and tools when we came upon a power box sticking out of the side of the building - it sat like a square parasite on its square host. the metal box must have been designed by the cube planet people who designed the building it rested on because it lacked anything that anyone could possibly find interesting about it. it definitely lacked a toaster.

since we were fastening the toaster on a vertical surface, we decided to apply the epoxy, attach the duct tape and lean nonchalantly against the toaster for the five minutes that it would take for the epoxy to do its thing. if this were a movie, this would probably be the part where you excused yourself to go to the bathroom.

if there's one thing that i've learned from the whole expedition, it's that five minutes passes a long time when you're leaning nonchalantly against a toaster in the middle of the night. it goes even longer when nobody in your group has a watch on. when we had all agreed that five minutes must have passed, the clown removed his weight from the chrome craft and we scuttled away back to the car and hoped that the duct tape would hold.

as we scoured the newspapers the next day, we were sad to discover that the media was lacking in toaster sightings. the only exception was a brief, two sentence mention about a toaster that had been discovered and mistaken for a bomb. the police were called and the situation was quickly resolved.

the other toasters that surprisingly avoided any media attention were the ones that wound up in hard to reach places that lasted indefinite periods of time. one had found itself nestled in the fountain of justin herman plaza and another was proudly stuck to an outdoor clock face on upper haight. the clock toaster lasted the longest out of all twenty or thirty that were spread around san francisco. people would walk under the clock, day in, day out, and assume that toasters belonged on clocks in the haight.

unfortunately, the hostess toaster had disappeared when we went to check on it the next day. nary a sign of adhesive, duct tape or chrome revealed itself on the spot where we had stuck it.

hostess wonderbread - we'll get you yet!

<02.10.01>

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