Burnt Toast.

Burnt Toast

This is an old work story called burnt toast. There was a man who woke up one day feeling wonderful and full of life and very excited about the day ahead. He was married to a fine woman, had a nice house and a nice car and a wonderful career where he never felt like he was actually having to work, but that his work was fun, and brought Win/Win situations to every endeavor.

However there was one thing he hated, and that was when his wife would burn the toast. So today he wakes up feeling wonderful, gets dressed and starts down the staircase to the dining area but his nose perks up and he thinks he begins to smell burnt toast. His wife had been preoccupied with one of the children and had in fact burnt the toast. She tried scraping it and put another couple of slices in the toaster, but he had smelled the burnt toast. His good mood was destroyed and he stormed into the room and asked his wife what she smelled, and she admitted that she had burnt the toast. Now she also, lost her good mood in the smell of burnt toast.

The man ate his breakfast hurriedly and went to the garage and started his car and began backing it up into the street but he wasn't really thinking and his rear end collided with another car coming down the street. The driver of that car had been in a very good mood this morning – he had gotten a raise and had proposed and was now engaged to be married and he loved it. Until that unconscious bastard banged into his car. Now that guy was fuming and he smelled burnt toast. They exchanged insurance information and each went on their separate way smelling and tasting burnt toast.

The man's secretary had woken up in a great mood. She had finally caught up completely with her work at the office and this allowed her a little bit of free time to attend to her own needs, such as polishing her nails. Her boss, our man, roared into the office screaming at her for polishing her nails and telling her to get back to work. Now the secretary smelled burnt toast instead of nail polish.

The men had a meeting that was almost certain to earn him a great deal of money but because he was in such a foul mood he transferred the taste of burnt toast to his client who promptly fired him and went somewhere else.

Perhaps you can begin to see how negativity spreads like a contagion – just like a virus on the border between life and nonlife it spreads like wildfire, and by the end of the day perhaps 1000 people have been affected by this one event of the wife burning the toast by accident.

That's the story of the Burnt Toast. There is nothing more to say and it is a perfectly true story being played out all over the world. People have requirements, no matter what they are, and if they are not fulfilled – well then, burnt toast.