Meet Conan, instant manicure death

I'm in my favorite Asian supermarket when I spot a cleaver on display on one of the dusty shelves. It's one of those heavy cleavers with a wooden handle and a rather attractive slanted rectangular. The cutting edge looked like you could have sliced a hair in two if it dropped it on the edge, like those Disney cartoons. If it had a name it would be something like Conan, Vegetable Destroyer or something. My eyes light up like candles and I gleefully drag my prize over to the cashier.

Today, I come home and I see my brand new toy sitting in the dish rack. As my red wine lamb stew bubbled away on the stovetop, I look around for something I can inflict vegetable Armageddon on. Gleefully, I remember that my stock of fresh minced garlic is low and the bag I bought the other day at my favorite spice shop. "Prepare to meet your maker," I croon to the garlic. Yes, I'm sad like that.

Conan is a vast improvement on our current knife. It's not so much a cutting tool as a smooshing one. You just press the edge to the thingy you want to cut up and apply as much force as possible. Cutting up whole chicken is always an exercise in potential digital amputation, and I've been seen with both hands on the blade, hopping up and down in hope that my weight will require the law of the physics of pressure to apply, screaming "Go THROUGH, damnit!"

But this thing cuts like a dream. I'm swept away by a tide of enthusiasm, unfortunately.

Remember when you were a kid and you wanted to help in the kitchen and your mother lets you cut something like carrots or garlic and you had watched too many episodes of "Yan Can Cook" after school and you’re convinced you can do that funky supersonic chopping and you try to do it but your mother yells at you and so you have to stop?

Yeah.

Convinced that this time I am older and possessed of more hand-eye coordination I give it my best shot.

Ten cloves of garlic later, I suddenly realize that the index finger feels a little.... funny. And that's when I realized that I somehow managed to neatly slice off part of my fingernail. There was no blood, just a perfectly straight line where my fingernail abruptly terminated and very pink tender flesh underneath.

"Oh, SHIT!" I yell, as I realize that somewhere in my jar of beautifully minced garlic was a rather significant piece of fingernail.

I couldn't find it. I don't think I'll be offering my garlic to LovesHerDog any time soon