Getting our exercise

 Today, I decided to set up the new bread machine and make some fresh bread for supper.  Carefully read all the instructions, and then looked for a recipe in the little book they provided.  No recipe for white bread, just some  for Golden Potato Bread, or Quick Raisin Almond Wheat bread.  So I checked for a website.  Just one that was obviously for someone looking for repair.  But there was a 1-800 number which I called. A bit of a wait but then spoke to a very nice young man, who listened to my tale, checked the info from his end, agreed with me about the lack of decent recipe, and found an additional recipe book on the internet, that included white bread, and sent it to me by e-mail.  After a couple of hours with no sign of it, I called again.  What I thought was another young man, but later found out was a young woman, she called up, and verified all the information from the first call, and cheerfully sent the document again, after verifying my e-mail.  Didn't arrive.  After about 20 minutes I called again, and got what sounded like an older woman, told me her name was Patricia, so she must have been competent.  She, too, sent the document but we stayed on-line, and waited.  Finally, she offered to dictate the recipe to me.  Problem solved--sort of.

So, to make bread,  I pushed the start button before pushing other buttons, that should have ben pushed, but the process started and 3 1/2 hours later the machine turned itself off. The instructions were to take the bread out of the container immediately, and allow both it and the container to cool--about 20 minutes.  Wouldn't come out.  No way, no how,  I thought we should wait until it had cooled so it would be easier to handle.  So here's me trying to hold the bread maker down on the counter, while David used both arms to try to get the baking pot out. Talk about togetherness!  Finally we put the machine on a low chair to give us better leverage, and got the pot out.  Then the task was to get the bread out of the pot.  We tried everything, even attempting to slice it in the pot so we could get the part not being held in by the paddles.  By this time it had cooled enough to use hands rather than spatulas, and we forcibly pulled it out with our hands, ending up with a pile of chunks of mashed bread.  Tasted okay though once we added margarine.