The life of a bachelor is one of video games, beer-stocked fridges, and peeing with the door open. And while grilling should be a man’s favorite hobby, sometimes you want a cooking method that’s a little faster and requires less brain power. Especially when you’re cooking for your sad, lonely single self.

That’s where the toaster comes in. Toasters are marvelous inventions, maintaining the relative speed of a microwave without the problem of making your food all soggy and gross. Thanks to toasters you can prepare a nice hot snack during the loading screens before you get back to video gamin’ action. Here are some of our favorite things to stick into our toasters, ranked in order of “Definitely put that in a toaster” to “Don’t try this  unless your house looks beautiful engulfed in flame.”

Bagels

Besides actual toast, bagels are the single most frequently toasted food by Americans who are the author of this article. That makes them a perfectly patriotic start to Independence Day. In terms of an on-the-go breakfast bagels are the oldest of the old school. Plus they’re the best way to eat healthy during your commute while pretending to believe that just one bagel constitutes a healthy enough breakfast to counterbalance the Snickers bar you’ll get from the vending machine later this morning because you’re hungry from only eating one bagel for breakfast.

Pop-Tarts

Pop-Tarts completely changed the breakfast game. Before, you had to choose between the sugary goodness of a bowl of cereal and the speed and portability of a bagel, and never the twain shall meet (unless you were to sprinkle 15 grams of sugar on your bagel or something). Now you can enjoy all the sugar-infused goodness of a full bowl of Sugar-Coated Chocolate Bombs. Sugar and obesity? Again–these are just American traditions we’re enjoying here.

Don’t worry, miss! We’ll save you…with our mouths

Frozen Waffles

Unlike Pop-Tarts, waffles allow you to control the amount of sugar you force upon your unsuspecting body in the morning. We all like to pretend that we’ll use the syrup sparingly, but in reality we drown those suckers in the sweet mapley goodness from our friends up north. Regardless of sugar content, frozen waffles offer a dining experience most similar to a real meal for a food that pops out of the toaster. This is mostly because the majority of people eat waffles with utensils, although that’s more of a suggestion than an actual rule if you ask us.

Pop-Up Pizza

So apparently there’s a pretty decent restaurant with this same name, but we’re talking toaster-friendly foods here, not well-reviewed downtown eateries. To us, Pop-Up Pizza means the one-portion pizza squares you can cook in 4 minutes and never worry about horrible soggy crusts. Also, unlike Hot-Pockets, which are designed for the microwave, Pop-Up Pizza is always evenly cooked, never a frozen core surrounded by molten lava.  Some people turn their toaster on its side so the cheese doesn’t fall off and start a fire. Some people also remember to check that their toaster and the surface below it are okay with that. Some people hate taking risks. We cook ours in the tub, balancing the toaster on one knee. And the tub is full of sharks. We’re tough like that. AMERRRRIIIIICAAAA!

Hot Dogs

Cooking the hot dogs and toasting the buns separately is SUCH a chore…

This one may surprise some of you, but it’s true! Cooking a hot dog in a pop-up toaster is entirely possible. Almost never recommended and probably fairly dangerous, but possible nonetheless. (Look, we’re not saying you should do it; we’re just saying some folks have. So don’t do it, because then you’re going to burn your house down and sue us, and if we had any money, we wouldn’t be making hot dogs in a toaster. Okay? Okay.)

Sure the hot dog might fall over or not fit perfectly into the toaster’s slot, but are you gonna let that stop you? If you answered yes, but still want to toast hotdogs, you’re also in luck, because they actually make pop-up toasters specifically designed to cook hot dogs. Of course, that’s pretty much the only thing you can cook in them, but don’t complain to us, we still say you should have just used your normal toaster, because we just took out a huge fire insurance policy on your house.

So enjoy that American icon, the hot dog, today. And thank your forebears that you live in a country where you have a right to start out-of-control fires (assuming you live in Pennsylvania and not New York), but the sense not to do so.

Tip #1: Don’t huff the lighter fluid

Matt Tarpey once played Michael Jordan’s son in basketball. Now that that’s out there, maybe he’ll stop bragging about it around the office. Find him on Twitter @Matt_Tarpey

And if you absolutely must barbecue in the backyard, follow Matt’s Tips for a Great Backyard BBQ (they’re weirder than you think!) –>