Toast and Toasters

Biff Furlong’s real first name isn’t Biff.

It’s Buford, but since Buf sounded funny his parents decided to nickname him Biff.

In some circles it may be argued somewhat convincingly that most right-thinking people wouldn't christen their son Biff. Despite this, Biff and his wife, Anita, named their own son Biff. And to top it off they insisted he be called Biff Furlong Jr.

Biff – the father – works in the quality control department at the Miller Toaster Co.  As a second assistant inspector in charge of ejection his job is to make sure the toasters pop up the toast properly when it’s finished.

Originally, this testing used up an awful lot of bread. So much so that the Miller Toaster Co. employees didn’t bother to bring lunches to work because there was so much toast lying around from Biff’s exhausted testing.

This all changed after Biff invented faux toast. It was the same weight and consistency of real bread, but because it wasn’t real bread it couldn’t be toasted and could be used over and over again.

The Miller Toaster Co. – whose slogan is “Producing quality toast for quality people since 1966” – carefully guards what it’s made of, calling it a trade secret. Biff got the company’s annual Great Idea Award about 10 years ago for inventing faux toast. It was the highlight of a career that would be called undistinguished if it wasn’t so innocuous to begin with.

It’s probably true that in the history of mankind  inventing faux toast doesn’t rank up there with inventing penicillin or the wheel or those big coasters you put under furniture to slide it along the floor. But to Biff Furlong it was the greatest thing he had ever done. Surely, he would think, every man should have one great thing in his life he could look back on with pride and a sense of accomplishment.

Unfortunately, in his more reflective moments, Biff considered himself a failure – faux toast notwithstanding. When you’re approaching 50 and your claim to fame is something that really doesn’t make you famous at all you sometimes wonder what you’ve done with your life.

As much as Biff liked walking down Patterson Avenue as the man who invented faux toast, he wished there was something else he could be considered good at.

People approach this depressing thought in different ways. Some just accept it and trudge on with the rest of their lives. Not Biff. He was constantly seeking his niche. Something that could bring him pride and satisfaction and increase his stature in the community.

He knew his limitations He knew he would never be a brain surgeon, an NBA point guard, the President of the United States, a rodeo clown or a porn star.

Then one day he hit upon an idea: blogging. He would become a famous blogger.

“Blogging?” a skeptical Anita asked him. “What do you know about blogging? And what would you blog about?”

 “Well, they say you should write about what you know,” Biff explained. “So I’m going to write about toasters.”

Biff named his blog “Toast and Toasters.” He read books about how to write a better blog, how to get thousands of people to read his blog, how to make a bunch of money writing a blog and “How to Become a Dynamo in the Bedroom” (the last one was at the behest of Anita, who took the time to mark the key passages with a yellow highlighter).

Weeks of blogging went by and the only people reading Biff’s blog were Biff, Anita, Biff Jr. (only when forced to do so by his parents) and a man in Topeka, Kan., who was convinced toasters gave off some kind of mysterious radio waves that could be used to control people’s minds.

Then Biff came up with another idea. He revamped and retitled his blog. It’s new name: “Well-Endowed Woman and Their Toasters.”

The blog became a big hit, no pun intended, and Biff became living proof that there can be a second act after faux toast, just as long as it involves women with exceptionally large breasts.