The Ballad of Barty's Botched Breads

Barty Butterfield woke up to the sound of his own sigh. Another day, another cosmic conspiracy against his existence. He attempted to make toast, a simple enough endeavor for most. For Barty, it was an Olympic sport in misfortune. The toaster, a model specifically designed for "idiot-proof browning," immediately erupted in a minor inferno. The smoke detector, usually a silent guardian, shrieked like a banshee discovering a coupon expiry date.

This activated the building's ancient, overzealous sprinkler system. Water gushed, turning Barty's apartment into a regrettable indoor swimming pool. The power grid, already fragile from yesterday's squirrel-induced outage, buckled under the sudden electrical short. Darkness. And then, from across the hall, a frantic squeal. Mrs. Higgins' prize-winning poodle, Fifi, startled by the blackout, had bolted from her apartment, directly into the path of a delivery truck carrying 500 gallons of live eels.

The ensuing chaos—slippery streets, an overturned eel truck, a hysterical Mrs. Higgins, and Barty standing in the doorway, soaked and smelling faintly of burnt bread—drew a crowd. A particularly dramatic bystander, convinced it was an alien invasion (or at least a particularly aggressive flash mob), called the police. Barty, still clutching his now-soggy, fire-damaged toaster, was promptly apprehended for "gross negligence leading to aquatic animal liberation and public disturbance."

At the precinct, an officer, eyeing Barty's sodden state, commented, "Rough morning, eh?" Barty just shrugged, a single, perfectly toasted (but still wet) slice of bread falling from his pocket. "You have no idea," he muttered, as a sudden meteor shower began outside, narrowly missing the station.