Last month, Mr. and Mrs. Tota of Florida began their morning with a craving for waffles but received a kitchen fire instead.
According to
this article, Elizabeth and Nicholas Tota's toaster caught fire and caused smoke damage to their condominium. Thankfully, the Totas suffered only minor injuries.
I traveled back in time and space to take these photos of the Tota toaster:
Minutes later—even though the toaster's lever had popped back up—the waffles remained stuck inside:
Then this happened:
Poor toaster. Ah well, it's gone to a better place and lives on as a
familiar-looking screensaver:
On March 9, 2010, the Totas made waffles in a defective toaster...
And that's how the fire started.
***
Here's a behind-the-scenes
video of how I started the fire: