Dicing onions is one of the most important skills you can learn in the kitchen and an indispensable tool for repairing your damaged psyche. Follow these simple steps to begin your culinary journey of emotional recovery.
Get onion.
Place onion on cutting board.
Text your ex. Tell them that you are dicing an onion and capable of change.
Slice the onion vertically, then cut off the top part of the onion, leaving the end with the tiny roots intact.
Try to peel away the sad, brittle exterior. Then do the same to the onion.
Take one half of the onion and make two horizontal cuts toward the root end, being careful not to cut your hand.
Cut your hand.
Call your ex and tell them you will require stitches and a trip to the ER. Text photos of your flesh wound when they don’t respond.
Open bottle of wine. Drink straight from the bottle.
With a hand bandaged in paper towels and scotch tape, begin making vertical ⅛ inch slices on a potato. Stop midway through and realize you are cutting a potato.
Retrieve the onion from the dog who somehow snatched it while you were cutting a potato.
Mix together orange juice and vodka to create a tasty, multipurpose disinfectant that can be used to rinse the onion and your wounded hand, or as replacement wine.
Place the half-chewed onion remains on the cutting board and begin smashing them with the now empty wine bottle.
Wipe away the tears and tell yourself that you are crying because of the onion fumes.
Great work so far! Now, set aside the first half of your diced onion and stare into the void.
Diagnose yourself with ADD.
Begin to enroll in Klarity ADHD for an Adderall prescription then hover above the confirm appointment button for 10 minutes. Close the browser without finalizing the appointment, thus confirming your inability to finish tasks or remain focused on the things that matter most in life, like relationships or the last season of Top Chef.
Continue slicing the other onion half by opening a new bottle of wine.
Look down at the smashed onion pieces and realize that your cooking skills are a metaphor for your life’s many developmental failures, or many successes, depending on how far you made it on the second bottle.
Now, place all your freshly diced onions in the trash because you had no other ingredients for dinner, just an onion.
Log into your ex’s Seamless account and order enough Thai takeout for 10 people.
Take a break until your food arrives by lying down on the kitchen floor.
Fall asleep in a way that resembles passing out, but don’t label it as such.
Jump up when you hear keys jingle in the front door. Hurry to the window and shimmy down the fire escape before your ex comes back into their apartment. Don’t worry about the mess or the trail of blood you left. They probably won’t figure out that you still have a key.
On your hurried walk home, stop at a bodega to buy a new onion. Realize that you left your wallet somewhere in your ex’s apartment. Steal the onion.
Return home and place your new onion on the counter as a reminder that mistakes happen when you learn to dice onions, so you shouldn’t criticize or blame anyone for the night’s setbacks, even though it was really irresponsible of your ex not to change their lock. Forgive your ex for being so irresponsible.
Look in your backpack for something to eat for dinner because you only have expired mustard packets in your fridge. Find nothing but an object that is either a Xanax or a smooshed Tic Tac.
Be mature enough to confess that you feel a little anxiety over quitting your steady office job today to pursue a cooking career.
Take the maybe Xanax.
Finally, let the minty freshness and warm glow of self-actualization wash over you as you blissfully fall asleep in your roommate’s bed.
Great work! See you next week when we learn to make an omelet after discovering that Steve got the big promotion over you.
“Hell is other people… not signing up for my newsletter”, Sartre