The Fin-Tech Fortune & The Toaster's Temporal Twist

Barnaby Buttercup awoke to a disconcerting sight. His goldfish, Reginald, was wearing a tiny monocle and frantically tap-dancing on a miniature Lilypad-branded smartphone. "Reginald?" Barnaby croaked, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Reginald, an otherwise unremarkable common carp (despite Barnaby's insistence on calling him a goldfish), paused his jig, blew a bubble that clearly said "IPO!", then resumed a complex routine involving a microscopic whiteboard and a flurry of fin gestures that could only mean "Series A funding round, mate!"

Barnaby, a man whose greatest technological achievement was consistently setting his VCR clock to the wrong time, felt a headache bloom. He tried to communicate, "Reginald, are you... running a startup?" Reginald responded by doing a dramatic interpretive dance depicting market dominance, followed by a triumphant leap over a stack of what appeared to be tiny, water-logged dollar bills. It was then Barnaby noticed the distinct aroma of burnt toast emanating from his kitchen.

He stumbled in to find his ancient toaster glowing an ominous shade of purple. A single slice of rye bread, suspended mid-air above it, flickered in and out of existence. Barnaby, in a moment of pure, unadulterated instinct, tried to poke it with a spoon. A blinding flash, a sound like a thousand angry kazoos, and Barnaby found himself in the kitchen, but everything was sepia-toned, and Reginald was now wearing a tiny bowler hat, furiously negotiating with a pocket watch that had sprouted legs. "Blast," Barnaby muttered, "I've invented a time-traveling toaster. And Reginald's still ahead of the curve!" He sighed, knowing his future involved trying to explain 'temporal toast' to a fish who only spoke in venture capital-themed charades.