Who said you need 10 fingers?

If I told you that your knife was shit and you should throw it away or cut off a finger and save yourself some pain in the future, would you believe me?

I had a "culinoob" (culinary school kid that doesn't know shit and only works to buy things, not pay bills) at my last job that was in love with his Henkel knife.  The tip was gone, the blade was bowed because he put it in the dishwasher. (Note:  Unless you bought your knife at the checkout counter at a No Frills supermarket, don't ever fucking wash your chef knife in a dishwasher, it destroys the blade.)  When cutting with it, you could feel it pull you in different directions, and cutting a pepper was as dangerous as running through Afghanistan wearing only an American flag.

This culinoob, we will call him Rick, had everything, his family was loaded, and when he finishes school, his family will throw money at him for his own restaurant, which will fail in 9 months and leave his family broke.  Rick was a know it all 22 year old without a care in the world other than cooking boring French food and telling lies about the women he had been with.  

On Thursday nights, we would prep all of breakfast mirepoix for the next two days, and he always worked that night, so I would sit and watch as he slowly prepped peppers, onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, and different fruits.  Slowly was a nice way of putting it.

I almost needed to chew my fingernails in a nervous fit due to his cutting abilities, or the lack there of.  He would cut the peppers skin side up, which is kitchen rule # stupid, never cut a pepper skin side up.  I would watch the knife struggle to cut through a tomato, and peel the skin off an onion, instead of cutting through it.  

Every Thursday, I would watch him do this, and then I would tell him when he was done to throw that awful knife away before he looses a finger, and he would laugh and say he was a pro.....

"Rick, what the fuck!  Are you alright?"

"Sorry Chef, the knife slipped."

"No shit, donkey fucker, I told you that was going to happen, but no, you wanted to be a brave badger and now you are missing the top of your finger."

"Will you take me to the ER, this really hurts?"

"Will I take you to the ER and fix something that I told your rocket scientist ass would happen every Thursday for a month?"

"Please?  It really hurts."

"Not as much as your pride will hurt once you realize that you could have avoided this.  Now grab your finger tip, put it on some ice in a bag, wrap your finger in a towel, clock out, and get your noob ass to the fucking ER before I decide mend this situation with some salt, and a nice sear on the flat top."

"You're an asshole."

"I'm not the one who looks like they need a tampon for their finger tip, fuck stick, now get."

Rick came back later and apologized, and I told him he was an idiot, and that I threw his knife in the fryer, and then in a bucket of ice, and it snapped in half.  By the way, that is a really fun way to destroy something, just in case you ever feel like it.  Rick lasted a couple of weeks after that, but eventually quit.  Shame, maybe.  Pride, very likely.  Me making fun of his situation and the tampon on his finger, most definitely.