Toastmasters club getting sued by toast enthusiast for misrepresentation

One student is filing a lawsuit against the Ryerson Toastmasters after learning they weren’t a group for toast enthusiasts.

Ella Oper, a first-year nutrition and food student at Ryerson, said she’s feeling “seriously burned” after showing up to a Toastmasters meeting and realizing what the club was really about. “I was just looking for a place to share my love of bread in one of its finest forms, and I walk up into this place and it’s just atrocious, I tell you, atrocious!”

Toastmasters’ president Gerald Daily told Oper that she’d have to take her “toast-lovin’-tushy” somewhere else, as the group is actually a club for people to work on their communication and leadership skills. “She could have looked it up online before she showed up,” said Daily. “We literally have a Facebook page explaining what we do here.”

Oper has been a lover of bread (toast in particular) since she was born. Her mother, Debra, said that Oper’s first words were “I want more toast.” Growing up, Oper made it her life goal to be a toast advocate and speak out about her love for the baked bread all over the world. “I’ve given talks in San Diego, Puerto Rico and even Detroit,” said Oper. “I thought I could make Ryerson the next stop on my list.”

Some students who were at the meeting said that Oper and Daily exchanged a few hushed words before a tussle ensued. “It was like, crazy man. Just crazy,” said Jack Kryst, toastmember. “This chick was just screaming about ghosts or something, and then that uptight looking guy said something about tushies and she just whipped around and slapped him with some sort of foreign object.” The foreign object was an unopened bag of Dempster’s whole grain bread.

“I always carry bread with me,” said Oper. “You never know when you might need to make toast.” Oper said she hit Daily with the bag of bread after he made the “tushy comment.” “He had it coming,” she said. “If not from me, from someone else.”

After being hit with the bread, Daily clutched his face, which was red with a loaf-mark and seed indents, and called the meeting to an end. “I just… I just couldn’t go on. Not after that,” he said. Students dispersed, but not before pointing, laughing and making lewd comments about the situation.

Three days later, Daily received a court summons in the mail, informing him that the Toastmasters was being sued by Oper for misrepresentation. “At first I thought it was a joke, but then my dad, he’s a lawyer, he read the letter and told me it was legit,” said Daily.

Filing a lawsuit just, “felt like the right thing to do,” said Oper. She said the whole ordeal has left her feeling cheated, upset and a little hungry. Immediately after the altercation, Oper went to the nearest toaster to make and consume all 18 slices of the bread that she had used to hit Daily with. She topped them with butter and strawberry jam. “At first I was thinking just butter, but then adding strawberry seemed more appropriate.”

Daily and Oper are set to appear in court on Nov. 27.