Rising Unemployment

Cute, but no cigar.

I recently took a job at a local chocolate shop that's sort of a big deal around here. This decision was borne of frustration rather than need. I certainly don't need candy--who does?-- and the hourly rate proffered would piss off Norma Rae. But I figured, hey, it will get me out of the house, and I'll be meeting new people, and I might even learn something.

So far I have learned that although you have to wear a hairnet when you are making chocolates, you don't have to wear rubber gloves even though you are forming little balls of peanut butter goop with your actual bare fingers. They explained why, and while it made sense at the time, still it seems wrong, and I don't get the hairnet thing at all. Is that in case you have head lice? Because if it is, you should not even be on the premises, you should be in quarantine.

The other thing I have learned is that you can buy big blocks of chocolate from another purveyor, then melt it down and pour it into molds shaped like bunnies or Bean Boots or moose or little baskets or wheelbarrows, then slap your own label on it and call it yours. Who knew?

The last and most important thing I learned is that working in a chocolate shop, especially when I don't really like chocolate, is not for me. Which is why I am quitting that job today. I may start a painting of a big chocolate bunny instead.