I love Mary's poem. Excellent choice of title.

I think the mysterious toaster may be a frustrated Ravens fan, angry that Poe didn't intercede with The Almighty to arrange a victory for his team. He probably drank the cognac and went off on a toot. The roses? Maybe he dropped them off on the set of "The Bachelor."

Sad to see the tradition unfulfilled, but maybe it's fitting. Could be the 200th Birthday or maybe 60 years of toasts was deemed enough. A Poe fan since childhood I always enjoyed hearing of "The Toast" yearly but had no interest in learning the idenity of the toaster (fitting to Poe, full of romantic mystery). Probably just a matter of time before someone caught it and submitted it to YouTube anyway, so maybe it's for the best.

A lighter side of Edgar?

Ravenesque

Once upon a morning dreary, as I awoke, my eyes all bleary,
After many a fraught and furious nightmare of days of yore,
While I dozed there, dimly dreaming, suddenly there came a dinging,
As of someone my door bell ringing, ringing at my street front door,
”Who could that be there?”, I muttered, “ringing at my
street front door?”
But t’was the alarm and nothing more.

So I hit the snooze and waited, while my bleariness abated,
Thinking, wondering what the day might have in store,
While the digits slowly tumbled, ticking to the time I’d numbered
As the time to cease my slumber, had I slept one half hour more,
That treasured time we love to linger, just another half hour more,
Forgotten now for evermore.

Then it came again, the dinging, insistent in its awful ringing,
Piercing in persistent pinging, pressing me to sleep no more,
No more time to lay and linger; no more snooze at touch of finger,
I had to rise and then begin the weary walk to bathroom door,
Shuffling in my sheepskin slippers inch by inch to bathroom door.
Wishing this were nevermore.

Turning to my day’s ablutions, I squirted colored soap
solutions,
Mostly bought in bulk-buy bottles from a five and ten cent
store.
Water washed away the weary; soap stung eyes and made
them teary,
Stinging pain so sharp and steely, hardly could I see the
floor,
Despite more water washed on eyelids, with that sting I
swear that I did
Cry out loud, “No! Nevermore”.

“Never will I rise each morning, rush to dress, myself adorning
With clothes correct for casual working, working at my daily chore.
Too much toil and slaving sorrow stole my each and every ‘morrow
Taking time I’d rather take to stroll the sand of distant shore.
Time I’d trade in Satan treaty, just to stroll that far flung shore.”
I feared it shall be never more.

Then my wife, startled, awakened, asked me why I sounded shaken,
She said I’ve never been so worried, worn and weary e’er before,
Why, today, this day of all days, did I fret and frown in such ways?
And begged me back to bed to slumber just another half hour more.
Come back to bed and rest a moment; ‘back to bed’ she did implore.
More persistent than before.

here I was, the work day waiting, and here I heard this woman baiting,
Baiting me to let work wait; never was this heard before!
So I asked her “Are you crazy? Do you think I’d be that lazy
While there’s a house and cars to pay for; tuition for our child, what’s more?”
Tuition taught by private tutor for our talented teenage
daughter?
She replied, “But you work no more!”

Then all at once in wide-eyed wonder, did I comprehend my blunder.
For through the night in deepest slumber I had forgot the day before,
When working daily for a living no longer was my one misgiving,
Now all work and project planning were history like the days of yore.
I had retired and my project planning had gone the way of the dinosaur!

No more working! Never more!

Bernard, enjoy your retirement! Maybe a second career as a poet?