Toaster in a Smoothie Shop

Say there’s a smoothie shop.

For whatever reason, they need a new blender.

Maybe one of theirs broke, they need to upgrade an outdated model, or just need an extra one to meet the demands of an increase in business.

Whatever the case, they order a new machine, it gets delivered, and they excitedly exclaim “sweet! A new blender!”

 

Except the machine isn’t a blender. It’s a toaster.

For whatever reason they can’t tell the difference. Whether they’re just oblivious or willfully ignorant, or even in denial, no one can say.

 

Regardless, in the following hours they plug in the new machine, pour in juice and drop in frozen fruit and expect it to blend them into a smoothie, but all that happens is the fruit gets burned and the machine shorts out and catches fire.

 

The employees spend minutes panicking, making a mess of the building trying to find the fire extinguisher as the fire grows. Maybe one employee dumps a bucket of water on it, not knowing you shouldn’t pour water on an electrical fire. The problem is made worse.

 

Once the fire is out, no one says “this isn’t a blender. We made a mistake.” Instead, they’re attempting to perform percussive maintenance on the broken machine, shouting “damn blender, why don’t you work?! Why were we sent broken equipment?!”

 

How do you think the toaster feels? Does it wish it could explain to these people that it’s not a blender and it’s not supposed to be here, it’s meant for a different job?

Does it even know it’s a toaster? Was its first moments out of the box and told it was a blender all it had ever known? Is it now choking back tears, beating itself up and wondering ‘why couldn’t I just do this right? Everyone’s angry at me now. I’m broken. I’m useless. I’m worthless. I’m better off thrown into a scrap heap.’

 

Does it think ‘I’ll never be good for anything’, not knowing there’s a sandwich shop down the road where it would fit in better? Or even better, an apartment where someone who enjoys toast in the morning had just moved in?

 

That’s what it was like growing up as an autistic child.