today was verrrrry sad...

...though I did it to myself, so have no one else to blame. Due to volunteering to go to work. There was only one other person doing the prep. work in the produce department, so I offered myself. Thinking I could go in a work a few hours that would improve the condition of my paycheck, that would otherwise be remarkably slim and trim due to limited hours. And the sad part was due to spending most of the day prepping for slicing. Mostly onions and some squash.

Management or whoever has authority to make decisions has recently started requiring a variety of sliced vegetables to be available for purchase. Saving the customer the labor part of taking home a whole squash or onion or bell pepper and having to wash and slice it before using in the recipe for supper.  Just another way we continue to build a reputation for excellent customer service. Amazing how many people are buying little black styro. trays with a combination of squash and onions, or colorful array of sliced pepper rings, or tasty mix of mushrooms, peppers and onions for steak or pizza toppings. Amazing how many people are willing to pay for someone else to do the slicing.

So I was slicing peppers into rings. They look so pretty, artfully arrayed on the black tray covered with shrink wrap. And cost nearly double what the price would be if you took it home and sliced it yourself. But then you would have to buy all four colors, and have 'way more peppers than you could use in your recipe. So the extra would sit in the drawer in the bottom of the fridge and grow pennicillin cultures.

I was thinking about the game you see when you go to the carnival. Where the innocent are lured in to trying to guess which walnut shell, or over-turned cup is the one the pea or coin is hidden under. The rubes are persuaded to bet their funds on being smarter or more able to keep up with, visually follow which vessel the little item is secreted under. I would slice the pepper's stem end off, and clean out the seeds, then turn them sliced end down, so I would have a row of upside-down vegetables lined up on the cutting board, ready for me to slice each different color into thin rings to stack up on the little rectangular trays. Orange, yellow, red, green.  Wondering what I should put under the pepper to use as the' pea' to trick the un-suspecting carnival goers...

Then I had to peel and quarter thirty onions. Don't let anyone convince you the 'sweet' variety are not as heart-wrenching as the old fashioned yellow or white one. I wept. I cried. I grieved. I made sad faces, and walked away a dozen times but had to keep coming back to get it done. They are huge onions, as big as the locally famous Vidalia Sweet onions grown in west GA, nearly the size of the head of a newborn. Easily matching a softball in diameter. They made me so unhappy. Over and over. But I got it done, and was able to regain my cheerful disposition.