mint chocolate buddha please!

So, had my first day of chef class today. Chef Pat (our teacher) seems nice. Since the whole rest of the class is going to be practicing for service one week and doing service the next, she decided that these first two weeks should be our "fun" weeks, so today we got to make burgers and onion rings!! She even brought in beer.

...for the onion ring batter, you nitwits.

So we go into the kitchen and I'm like "It's nine o'clock, we've got six people to make burgers and onion rings, and service is at noon. That's a ton of time." So me and Andy leisurely cut up a ton of onions (we're feeding the HMT 112 class as well, plus the instructors, so we're cooking for [approx] twenty-five people), and I mix the batter together, and then we get ready to dip them. And THEN it gets decided that we need to take EACH individual onion ring (before breading it) and peel the membrane off the inside of it. Yeah, so that took forever. I didn't exactly mind, because it was easy, but it's the kind of mind-numbing chore where you can literally feel your IQ slowing dropping... and dude, I can't afford to let it get any lower!

So class finishes up, we eat our food (I put my onion rings on my burger - totally the right move), and then I catch the bus home. By "home" I mean I get off at main street, maybe six block from my house, but it's downhill, and I walk it all the time. (When I go to school, I catch the bus right in front of my house, but on the way home I take whatever bus comes first, and that's usually the one that drops me off six blocks at home) Only I knew I had some stuff waiting for me at the library, so I rode a couple of blocks past my stop and got off there. Now, I didn't figure it was a big deal because either way I'm walking home, right? Obviously I failed to take into consideration the extra distance from the library to my usual stop. So I'm walking, and I pass the United Dairy Farmers. Now, it's cold outside and there's slush on the streets and it's vaguely raining (Ohio weather is wishy-washy, it can't commit to full-on rain) so of course I'm hungry for ice cream, because I am a brilliant and sexy man. So I see UDF and I think "Dude, it's been forever since I've actually bought myself an ice cream cone or a milkshake" and then I inevitable think, as I always do, "naaaah, I got that stuff at home" and so I keep going.

So, as I said before, I failed to calculate the extra length from the library. As it turns out, my legs know exactly how long it takes to walk from the bus stop to the house, and once I'd walked that distance, my legs told me they were done. I tried to explain that, hey, I know you guys are tired from standing in the kitchen and wearing chef shoes all day - I'm tired too - but it doesn't work that way guys, you can't just stop. We need to get home. But my legs weren’t having any it. I tried promising them ice cream, but they complained that I didn't get mint chocolate chip, like they have at UDF, which is my legs' favorite, but I managed to convince them that I'd them a milkshake as soon as we got home.

So, there I am, trudging the rest of the way home, promising myself a mint chocolate shake as soon as I get home, my IQ once again dropping due to the mind-numbing weather and the tiredness, and I'm thinking "okay I have vanilla ice cream, milk, and mint syrup stuff, but what do I do for the chocolate? Chips are too waxy" and THEN I remember that for my birthday, my sister bought me a solid chocolate Buddha. (chocolate is my sister's hobby - she keeps her best pieces in a jewelry box the way others keep jewelry - and I can totally see how she'd be looking thru a chocolate catalog, see that, and think of me) I'd been saving it, because it looks cool, but today, I realize, is the day Buddha has to die. So I'm walking home and I'm talking to myself to keep myself motivated but my cognitive skills are rapidly fading, and pretty soon I'm babbling about "mint chocolate buddha - i'm gonna have a mint chocolate buddha" and somewhere in the back of my brain it occurs to me that by the time I get home, I'll be like a five year old, DEMANDING a "mint chocolate buddah" and getting steadily angrier as my mom can't figure out what that is. Finally I get home, and my mom is untying the door so I can get in (we tie the screen door shut because the springy thing is broken) and I'm talking in three word sentences as I take off my coat and unfurl my knife set and get out my microplane (which is like a super fancy cheese grater) and proceed to kill Buddha. I did apologize to him first - I even told him he was my favorite god that I don't believe in. ....well, him and Thor. But mostly Buddha.

The shake came out okay. The chocolate was good though! It was better eaten as pieces, though - the microplane grated it too fine and you couldn't really taste it in the shake.