Mildred and the Gravity-Defying Toast

Mildred, a woman whose spatial awareness was roughly equivalent to a bewildered squirrel in a disco, decided to conquer breakfast. Her nemesis? A simple slice of toast. She’d eyed the toaster with the wariness of a bomb disposal expert. First, retrieving the bread: an arm flail that sent a cereal box tumbling. "Minor casualty," she muttered, narrowly dodging a rogue oat flake.

Next, the toast itself. She loaded it into the toaster, missed one slot, and the bread did a graceful dive under the counter. A sigh. Retrieving it involved a commando roll and a subsequent head-butt to the underside of the cupboard. The bread, now slightly dusty, was re-inserted.

Finally, bread in toaster, lever down. Success! A moment of triumph. Until the toast popped. Not out, but *up*. Straight up, ricocheted off the ceiling, and landed perfectly, butter-side-down (naturally), on her pristine white shirt. Her attempt to catch it mid-air resulted in a graceful pirouette, followed by her elbow catching the milk carton, sending a creamy wave across the counter.

"Oh, crumbs!" she exclaimed, a single tear of buttery despair rolling down her cheek. Her cat, Whiskers, surveyed the scene from atop the fridge, a connoisseur of chaos. "You know, Whiskers," Mildred confided, trying to scrape off the butter with a spatula, "sometimes I think gravity has a personal vendetta against me." Whiskers merely yawned, a picture of feline indifference, probably contemplating how much messier things could get before lunch.