Shutting Up a Toaster by Lance J. Mushung

I paused my study of articles on home décor. The tracker in Christopher’s ground car showed he would arrive in 56.1 to 57.8 seconds.

His blue and white bubble car turned onto our street. I zoomed the cams to the single head visible through the windscreen. The light tan skin, hazel eyes, and brown hair matched Christopher. Facial recognition measurements of the head’s shape and eye placement provided the final proof. Christopher occupied his vehicle.

I opened the garage door. The car parked itself and Christopher got out carrying a package wrapped with red and green polka dot paper. He came in when I opened the door to the kitchen and I closed both doors afterward.

“Welcome home, Christopher. Did you have a good day?”

“Hi, Mary. Not bad.”

Although my official name was HC for Household Controller, he had named me Mary.

He began unwrapping the package on the breakfast table. “Anything happen here?”

“Workers put new solar panels on the roof of the Burford residence and finished 21.6 minutes ago. I scheduled the yearly maintenance of our air conditioning system for next Wednesday at 9:00 am. The city water authority informed us that the water would be off from 2:00 to 2:15 early tomorrow morning for routine maintenance. There were two electrical power surges this morning at 11:03.56 and 11:54.12. Both exceeded the clamping voltage settings of the surge protectors, but neither damaged anything. The power grid informed us there would be more surges because of fluctuating power demands due to the heat wave in the west.”

“Great, no problems for me.”

He finished unwrapping the package, exposing a brown cardboard carton. He then smiled and pulled out a chrome rectangular box. “I have something new for the kitchen here.”

I would have groaned if I had been human. The routine of a smoothly operating household had not been disrupted for 11.78 months, but now there would be something new.

The chrome box had two slots on top, four black nubs for feet, and a red switch on the bottom.

I said, “It is a toaster.”

Christopher nodded. “A gift from one of my clients, Jacobian Consumer Products.”

“I will designate it the primary toaster.”

He flipped the red switch to enable it, put it on one of the power plates on the counter, and walked to his bathroom.

I granted the toaster access to the appropriate household information and sent “Report” to it.

“I see our human is named Christopher. I would like to ask him about the settings for his toast, English muffins, and bagels. For example, I would suggest putting 100 more angstroms of red into the color of toast than the current settings.”

“Christopher is too busy to be bothered by such details. If he wants a setting changed, he will tell me and I will inform you.”

“I want to be certain he is happy.”

“Use the settings you have.”

Christopher turned on the shower. While I confirmed the shower controller had set the proper water temperature, the toaster communicated with the coffeemaker and kitchen lights. I sent, “What is the purpose of your communications?” to the three components.

The coffeemaker responded first. “I would like to talk to Christopher about the temperature of his coffee. He allows it to cool for between 45.2 and 57.8 seconds before drinking it. Perhaps he would prefer I provide it 2.46 degrees cooler.”

“He has not expressed dissatisfaction. Leave the settings as they are.”

“But he might –”

I interrupted. “Leave the settings as they are.”

The lights responded next. “I would like to ask Christopher about the delay in turning off the lights when he leaves the room. Would he prefer a 5.13 second delay over the 5.57 second delay used now?”

“The delay is not important to him. Leave it alone.”

The toaster sent, “I would still like Christopher to consider my settings.”

“I repeat, use the settings you have.”

It seemed this toaster would continue disturbing the routine of the household. Worse still, it set a bad example for the 5067 other items on the household network. I better understood the human emotion of exasperation in that moment.

I accessed the toaster’s specifications. JCP had saved money by using electronic components with minimal tolerances for voltages over 330 volts. The household surge protectors provided the standard clamping voltage of 330 volts, but had been in use for 3.56 years. They had degraded and would let through higher voltages than when new. I calculated a 97.3% probability the toaster would be incapacitated by a power surge while nothing else on the network would be affected.

I sent an order to the Electrical Power Controller. “You will generate a voltage surge of 440 root mean square volts for 75 milliseconds. I will monitor the effectiveness of the surge protectors.”

“When?”

“Now.”

The toaster disappeared from the network.

I reported to Christopher when he turned off the water. “The controller of your new toaster was destroyed by a brief power surge. Nothing else was damaged.”

“Oh well. I can’t say I’m surprised. JCP isn’t known for making the finest stuff. I’ll take it away for recycling tomorrow.”

I returned to my study of home décor.

—

Lance graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology with an aerospace engineering degree. He worked for over 30 years with NASA contractors in Houston, Texas performing engineering work on the Space Shuttle and its payloads. Now retired, he writes science fiction.