Juicer Angst

I've been hearing the hype for weeks. A friend of mine just bought the most awesome juicer. She juices for breakfast things I only eat at a Sunday dinner. She is feeling great and she just goes on and on and on about the marvelous benefits of her wondrous juicer.

Well, I'm a gadget girl. I'm not a natural cook, but if you can make a blender that turns frozen peas into soup, I'm on it. I like recipes, I like fresh fruit and veggies, so I was listening to the juicer tales with rapt attention.

I asked my husband about it. He said to go for it, as long as I thought I would really use it. I make fresh orange juice almost every morning with my little, rickety citrus juicer, so why wouldn't I be a juicing queen with a commercial motorized contraption?

The price was not an easy thing to swallow. There were many options, and my friend had done the heavy lifting research. She explained why I should pay the extra $50 or even $100 to get the longest possible warranty with the sturdiest motor.

I went to my go to website, Amazon, and gazed and read reviews and had added and deleted said juicer from my cart at least 7 times. The questions were in my head: Would I really use it? Would it be worth the hefty price? Would my family even like carrot juice with parsley?

I finally just did it. I clicked submit and before I knew it, the big box arrived on my doorstep. I knew there was already a problem when I didn't rip the box open immediately. I watched the box. I walked by it. I moved it from place to place. I had fear of the brown box.

My daughter was so excited that she got the scissors and opened that baby right up. She is 8. She was ready to hit the juicing scene. I tried to downplay the excitement and told her we would make juice after dinner.

(Please remember, this is the girl who tivo'd the Big City Slider informercial and watched it over and over and made me watch it over and over until I finally ordered it!)

I knew as soon as I saw that beautiful, shiny, sexy chrome juicing machine that I had made a huge, expensive mistake. There were pieces and parts and bubble-wrapped attachments that made my head spin. I was in juicer shock. I put off juicing until the next morning at breakfast.

In the light of the day, with eager Birk by my side we finally did it. We turned two apples into two small, small glasses of apple juice. Firstly, I was mystified that I had to cut the apples up into tiny pieces to even fit them into the tube. I was not instantly the "Juicing Queen" lobbing full-size apples into a cider press.

No, I'm not even the "Juicing Jester." I'm still staring at this machine wondering "What have I done?" I hope my fear of juicer subsides and that I get more adventurous, but right now I'm wondering how to hide it and I'm grateful that my husband never reads my blog.

P.S. It was easy to clean, though.