For a lot of people, poetry tends to be dull. It’s not read much. It takes a special kind of training and a lot of practice to read poetry with pleasure. It’s like learning to...

Gender and the complications it gives rise to simply aren’t relevant to the lives appliances lead.

It considered trying to explain their error to them, but what would be the use? They would only go away with hurt feelings. You can’t always expect people, or squirrels, to be rational.

Here was a flower (the daisy reflected) strangely like itself and yet utterly unlike itself too. Such a paradox has often been the basis for the most impassioned love.

In short, Daniel was once again a member of a family. Viewed from without they were a strange enough family: a rattling, hunchbacked old woman, a spoiled senile cocker spaniel, and a eunuch with a...

But the toaster was quite satisfied with itself, thank you. Though it knew from magazines that there were toasters who could toast four slices at a time, it didn’t think that the master, who lived...

Jesus loved crème brûlée, but even with crème brûlée enough isn’t just enough, it can get to be too much.

In any case, muffins that are only imaginary aren’t liable to get stuck.

The forest stretched on seemingly forever with the most monotonous predictability, each tree just like the next – trunk, branches, leaves; trunk, branches, leaves. Of course a tree would have taken a different view of...

What to AcceptThe fact of mountains. The actualityOf any stone — by kicking, if necessary. The need to ignore stupid people, While restraining one’s natural impulseTo murder them. The change from your dollar, Be it...

But before any of the small appliances who may be listening to this tale should begin to think that they might do the same thing, let them be warned: ELECTRICITY IS VERY DANGEROUS. Never play...

The toaster (lacking real bread) would pretend to make two crispy slices of toast. Or, if the day seemed special in some way, it would toast an imaginary English muffin.

So, without saying anything to the others, it made its way to the farthest corner of the meadow and began to toast an imaginary muffin. That was always the best way to unwind when things...