Do you butter toast when it's hot or when it's not?

Hot: Not only do I butter toast when it's hot, but I eat it when it's hot. Why else toast bread? Just to make it hard and crunchy? Like a big flat crouton? Who wants to eat a big flat crouton with breakfast? No. I'm sorry. People toast bread to make it crispy and warm. So it stands to reason that you must butter toast, if you're going to butter it at all, right out of the toaster when it's still good and warm. I know the Not's gonna whine, “ but then by the time you've got breakfast ready you're eating cold soggy toast.” Well a little forethought goes a long way! Put the bread in the toaster at just the right point so that buttering it immediately after it pops up is your last task in the breakfast preparation phase and eating it warm is your first task in the consumption phase.

Not: Yes, Hot, my biggest compliant about buttering hot toast is the all too likely soggy, cold result. But it goes deeper than that. (First off, I assume we're limiting this discussion to butter. No jams, jellies or preserves of any kind. Those are whole different animals. Fair, Hot? Okay then.) In order to ensure hotly buttered toast is consumed when it is most appealing (i.e. when still warm with some of the spread butter still solid or at least still opaque) one must be strictly regimented about not only one's breakfast preparation but also, alas, the eating of the meal itself. The toast must be consumed first, and completely, before moving on to other entities such as cereal or fruit. Now, hotly buttered toast works great if it's only accompanied with a cup of steaming coffee. The nature of the constituent elements of such a meal enables the parallel processing of both tasks involved in its preparation. The coffee brews while the bread is cut, toasted and buttered. Then the toast is consumed while the coffee cools in one's mug. An elegant symbiosis and one which I heartily recommend. (Though even in this simplistic scenario, given the incredibly quick cooling rate of toast, which is, after all, mostly air, the ill-timed dressing of one's Java could be all the distraction necessary to leave your breakfast a buttery bready bog.) But I also heartily recommend a heartier meal to start one's day. And in the face of a more complicated breakfast, cold toast, which can be buttered whenever it seems fit and consumed at one's leisure throughout the meal with little or no change in appearance or texture, offers the freedom and certainty I desire at dawn. It's all about freedom and certainty, Hot.

Hot: Not, Americans butter their toast hot and I'll be damned if I'm gonna stand here and let you cast dispersions on my love of freedom! You've all but admitted that warm buttered toast tastes superior to cold buttered toast so your argument comes down to one thing: You're afraid of the stakes of failure. Instead of trying to reach for improbable greatness you work toward a less desirable but more likely outcome. A true American plans and tries for greatness and then deals with the consequences if he fails. And yes, Not. A true American eats soggy cold toast once in a while. And does so proudly.

Not: For the record I never impugned your love of freedom, Hot. I accused you of not wanting to relish it during breakfast. But now you're accusing me of not being able to deal with failure. Indeed of not being a true American because I choose to manage risk. If the attempt to minimize the chance of failure, and thereby also limit the gratification of success, qualifies as cowardly, I stand guilty as charged! These are uncertain times, Hot. I think we all deserve a little cold-toast certainty with the morning paper.