 | Flick01 (71)
08/27/2006 |  While a toaster oven will toast bread there's nothing like a good old fashioned toaster to get the job done right.......... or so I thought. Remember, we're talking toast here....you know..... ordinary, every day toast......."You take a piece of bread, you put it in the slot, you press down on the lever and the wire gets hot.....you got toast!" The following is a copy of a letter that I wrote to Hamilton Beach - Proctor Silex dated August 22, 2006.
"I checked for product recalls......nothing. I checked your user guide because I thought that perhaps technology had changed since I was a kid and I was doing something wrong.......nothing. What got me angry about your user guide is the way that it talks down to me, as if I am too stupid to figure out that bread which is frozen will take longer to toast than bread which is at room temperature. So I have a news flash for your college trained engineers who design your toasters. (you may also wish to pass this along to the brainiacs in R & D) Listen up, kids. Bread which is pushed closer to one heating element is going to toast quicker and darker than the other side of the bread which is farther away from the other heating element. (Please read that as many times as needed until it is thoroughly understood) The "bread guide" in the Hamilton Beach model 22505 pushes the bread approx 1/2 inch away from the center element, leaving the other side of the bread approx 1 1/2 inches away from the outer element. How, in the name of common sense, can someone design a toaster such as this and then expect the bread to toast evenly on both sides? In order to get the bread to toast evenly I have to set the toaster to a quick setting (about one and a half) then when it pops up, I turn the bread around, push the lever back down and then count to 25. What kind of idiots do you hire that not only create such a stupid design, but then some other nerd actually APPROVES it? We are not talking rocket science here, we're talking about making TOAST!! May I humbly suggest that when it comes time to hire people for product design or research and development, you pay less attention to what degrees they have and hire someone who has raised children. They will have the real world experience needed to properly design a toaster that can evenly toast bread, bagels, pop-tarts, and the occasional G.I. Joe. Perhaps then I will consider purchasing another Hamilton Beach appliance. As I was looking through some of the products that you offer I noticed that you also make blenders. What are you, nuts or something? If you can't figure out how to do something as simple and elementary as toasting bread evenly, how in the heck can I trust you with a spinning blade? So here is what I am going to do. When my community has their next neighborhood garage sale I will happily donate my Hamilton Beach model 22505 and I will be grateful for the dollar that I will get (I'll go down to 75 cents), then I will go to my local flea market and hunt down an old chrome Toastmaster, preferably one made between 1950 and 1970. My childhood experience tells me that they are not only indestructible, but they successfully toast bread evenly on both sides at the same time, which is more than I can say for Hamilton Beach model 22505."
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