120 Slices in 120 Days: Lessons Learned
I ate 120 slices of toast over the course of 120 days. Here are some of the crumbs of knowledge I swept up in the process.
- Toast is good for single people who live alone. This is me. I eat toast for dinner, over the kitchen sink. I eat a lot of meals alone. A lot of stuff I would never serve other people. I am not alone in this. Toast is an easy way to be nourished and to feel connected to the greater legacy of toast- consuming humanity.
2. Toast is nostalgia. So many single people eat toast for the same reason urban outfitters makes millions selling re-purposed shit from our childhood: Nostalgia. We miss the time that soul-crushing 9–5 and the impending uncertainty of our future wasn’t present at every crusted corner. We yearn for the time when we could look around for the adult, instead of being the adult. A simpler time, when discomfort was easily soothed by stirred ginger ale and diagonally cut slices of bread ( with the crusts taken off). We get a second of that very pure pleasure when we sink our teeth into a slice of bread. Toast is comfort, and in a time of divisiveness, we need comfort more than ever.
3.Toast builds intimacy. We eat toast in the morning,with family, with friends or lovers. Shared toast is a ceremony reserved for people who know the entirety of our flawed being. It is not something we dress up for, or serve at dinner parties with people that we’re trying to impress. I will nibble on a slice while in my underwear, unbothered by the crumbs sliding down my bra and lodging themselves in the underwire. You need to know me in that kind of a way if we eating toast together. At that point, I am serving you toast because I love you in the purest way possible. I once had a roommate who fed his lover an un-buttered piece of toast on a paper towel. I gave her some butter and jam and let her know she deserved so much more.
4) A good foundation is the key for anything strong to exist. Toast is a solid base for everything. Want to make something better? Add a slice of carbs at the bottom.
5) Toast shows us how change is possible if we want it. With a bit of magic, and some extra accoutrements, two slices of toast become a beautifully unified sandwich. If you think about it, toast, is a greater metaphor for how we can create good in the world. Against all odds, everything that stands between them, those toasts make it work and become a sandwich.
If we believe in creating something bigger together, we can squash all the stuff that’s supposed to come between, by wrapping it in a warm bready embrace. Every culture has a sandwich. Sandwiches are the key to world peace, making toast the building blocks to world peace. You see toast is important. Think about it.
