Mimi's Toast???

My maternal grandmother -- whom we called Mimi -- loved to eat toast. Lot's of people like toast, I presume, but I have never met anyone who enjoyed their toast the way that Mimi did.

For breakfast, she would carefully select two slices of wheat bread and slowly, judiciously apply butter. Actually, she always called it oleo. Once the oleo was just right, she placed the two pieces of toast in the oven. She had a toaster but preferred her toast to be baked in the oven. She liked things a certain way and she never wavered from this toast-making ritual.

Mimi would hover in the kitchen, constantly checking on the status of her toast. When it looked just right, she would remove the toast from the oven and gingerly put one piece on a plate. Then she would eat the toast and I swear to you, she looked like a toast addict getting her daily fix. In hindsight, that is exactly what was happening.

She would save the other piece (in the oven, with the oven turned off) and have it as an afternoon snack. Mimi performed this toast ritual every day of her life.

It made her crazy. Literally.