So I'm at the mall this afternoon finally getting around to buying a pair of shoes to go with the suit I bought for my wedding this weekend and I'm feeling all stressed and jittery and anxious and totally behind on everything I need to get done before the big day. So, what do I decide to do to alleviate all this tension?
Buy a knife, of course.
Not just any knife. A Shun Classic 7-inch hollow-ground Santoku. That is one sweet knife. It promises to make slicing and dicing a speedier and more efficient process in my kitchen. Plus, the whole folded steel thing looks hot, in an "every appliance I own is over-priced stainless steel," gay kind of way.
So I get home and immediately take the knife out of its fashionably Japanese box and proceed to admire the knife's heft in my hand. I take a little swipe at one of the tomatoes I have sitting on the counter -- a task that, I'm ashamed to admit, often required a bit of extra effort from my old chef's knife -- and a perfect, near-invisible slit opens in the fruit. Wow, that's some sharp. Then I'm feeling the texture of the hollow spaces along the blade that reduce friction when slicing through veggies and such, and thinking, I wonder how sharp this thing actually...
Oh, my.
Yeah, it's that fucking sharp. I didn't even really feel it bite into my thumb until a few seconds after, like when the villain in a samurai film doesn't realize he's been decapitated until his head's sliding off his body. So I called Cavin to let him know that after he was finished picking up the thank-you mints for the reception he might want to stop by CVS and pick up some Band-Aids and, perhaps, a tourniquet.
Naturally, Cavin wasn't thrilled to find that in the midst of all this wedding planning I'd splurged on a fancy new knife. Still, I made him stand and watch as I diced half an onion with my old knife, and the other half with the new Shun Classic 7-inch hollow-ground Santoku, which cut through the layers like the proverbial hot knife through butter. Cavin was unimpressed, even as I showed him how finely I could dice the onion. As he grumbled, I went to wipe off some residual onion bits from the side of the blade and...
Oh, my.
Well, at least Cavin got a good laugh out of it, and I put a few more of the Band-Aids to use. I think I've learned my cautionary lesson and, if I'm lucky, I'll still have a ring finger come Saturday.
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