And so, we all got down to work. Tink had the joy and pleasure of zesting several cases of lemons. Buddy put together 1,000 cake boxes, and I learned how to construct the perfect apple pie and slice and dice apples. I would like to take the title of "Johnny or Jane Appleseed", but Cupcake's daddy owns it since he peeled and cored thousands and thousands of apples over a two day period.
Where to begin? Let's start with the number of double crusted apple pies that were ordered for Monday pick up (91 pies). This is not in addition to the 5000 to be picked up on Tuesday and Wednesday. So, I got to work and filled several pie crusts. I would tell you what I did, but I would lose my job if I revealed the secret. You know the one....the one that adds lots of apples.....
Once I finished the pies, I was assigned the task of dicing two large buckets of apples. This took two hours to dice the most lovely apples into the smaller chunks for muffins and apple cakes.
Then it happened....the big apple peeler...you know the one....it cost $5000 and could peel, core and chop an apple in ten seconds was jammed. By jammed, I mean broken...by broken, I mean unusable.....Now, if it was me, I would have sat on the floor, and stared at the wall until the holiday was over....not Baker and Sparky...they got right to work and dismantled the machine. It took 90 minutes from start to finish, but they never said a word except systematically work to fix the machine. Until then, we (Johnny Appleseed, Buddy, Tuna, and I) were sent to peel apples with the old peeler. That's when I incurred my first injury....the one that I did not see as Johnny A proclaimed that I was bleeding into the apples (ew). OK, I am a health care professional, I can apply a band aid and continue my job. Fortunately...or unfortunately, lots of folks seem to find their fingers with the knives and therefore there are lots of band aids in the bakery.....Moving on.....
Baker fixes the big apple machine and a policy is announced. Only Johnny A can use it. No one else. She only trusts Johnny....Fine...I can continue to slice the apples, which was my new job after I finished dicing. here is where it gets really good...or maybe scary. I sliced thousands of little slices and stored them in containers and bags. The way that it is done, is the slicer is placed in a large bowl and the apples are sliced into the bowl until there are enough to fill these large bags. Then the bowl's contents are dumped into the bags and taken away for processing. That's when I saw it and had a major melt down....
One of the rubber stoppers on the bottom of the slicer was missing. That's right...the size of a quarter, black, and rubber....missing....where did it go? OMG!
Was it in one of the bags that was headed for a pie? Was I going to be arrested for choking a person with a little rubber stopper? It's not even like a saw in a cake for a prisoner to saw through the bars. No! It's a little black thing that could choke someone!What to do? What to do? What to do? Think, fast, BP mom! Hurry before the stopper is baked into a pie.....OK, quick, Johnny, Buddy...get the cases of sliced apples and start looking for the stopper.....help....I am about to kill someone.....
We looked and looked and could not find it. Now, I am not sure that I was the one who lost the stopper since I never really looked to see if it was there. But...I sliced a heck of a lot of apples....and I could not find it....And so, I did what any idiot who discovered that she was not the genius that she thought she was...yeah....
I walked up to poor Baker who had grease all over her from the busted apple peeler and confessed my sin to her. I showed her the machine and told her that I could not locate the stopper. She smiled (or was that an "I'm gonna kill u grin"?) and said that it would be found and we would be very diligent when filling pies and cakes with the apples. After all, the bakers who fill the pies inspect the apples that are poured in. If the stopper is in with apples, it will be found. Did this help my fear?
Yes...and no....not really. I felt terrible and that I had let her down....geez....I had an important job of slicing apples and screwed it up. I better go back to the job that pays me and stay on the other side of the display counter or just eat the pies.
Today, Buddy and I will return to the bakery for a few hours. I am not sure if I will be welcomed or not. Perhaps I will be given the job or sweeping the basement...what could happen there? Or maybe, I will be sentenced to the fridge to look for the stopper. I guess I need an idiot-proof job.....
Am I being hard on myself? After all, it might not have been me who lost the stopper...maybe...maybe not....Maybe it was always missing and I did not notice it when I started to slice apples.....but I was the person to discover it. What if I didn't realize the stopper was missing? Maybe it would have been baked into a muffin....Perhaps, instead of a dolt, I am a hero...OK, let's not go that far. One day...maybe today...we will laugh about it......I will go in later to see if they found the little rubber thingamjing and finally relax.
Until then...
have a good day....!
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