I Have Sore Jaw Muscles Because Patience is Overrated

A couple or more posts ago, I shared the recipe for Scotcheroos that I had been craving so much.  I finally was able to make them earlier this week.  They looked so lovely, just as I so fondly remembered them.  The love had not faded with our separation.

The first piece?  Delicious.  They were still warm, the chocolate was melty and drippy and gooey and stuck in my cheeks in the most delightful way.  Then a big glass of cold milk chased it down, and my tastebuds were livin' like they were back in the teenage days.

Then the next day.  The bars had set.  I cut one square.  Let me be clear:  I used a knife to saw one square.  It was quite...firm.  Brick-ish.  I, with great reluctance, gave one to my two kids who are walking around with thousands of dollars of hardware in their mouths.  Fortunately, no hardware was damaged in the consumption.  Can you even imagine having to explain that???  That I gave my children a rice krispie treat that broke their brackets???  I'm not sure I ever would have lived that one down.

True to who I am, I did not let the texture hold me back from the flavor.  They were helping me get through my week.  I needed them.  I discovered that if I chipped off a piece and then microwaved that piece for 7 seconds, it was very bite-able.  A little chewy, but bite-able.  After a couple squares days of eating, I woke up yesterday morning with a strange headache-y feeling.  And I noticed my jaw muscles were sore.  Oh, yes they were.  Sore to the touch.  Sore if I moved my teeth in just the right (wrong?) way.  I'll be darned if I didn't chew myself through those bars to the point of injuring myself.

I know what happened, too.  It's all the fault of patience, which I'm always being told I need more of.  Oh really?  Well, I used my patience when I was making the peanut butter part of this recipe.  I stood there spacing out carefully watching the pot, stirring until the sugar was melted in all nicely.  I kept my mind sharply focused on whatever I was spacing out about, tried to solve all my problems, and make my mental calendar for the week ahead.  Perhaps I should have been sharply focused on how long the sugar had been cooking instead of melting.  Perhaps.  But I, for whatever strange reason, found myself in no particular hurry to move along with the recipe.  In short, I cooked it too long.  But the short version is so boring.  And it sounds like I did something wrong, when in reality I was practicing patience, which should be right.  Patience jumped up and bit me in the jaw muscles on this occasion.

I truly am not one to be deterred easily.  Or at least I'm not one to let a little toughness stand in my way of a perfectly delicious Scotcheroo.  And I survived the week with all my teeth unchipped.  And the sore muscles quickly healed with the help of some ibuprofen.  And yet I suppose if I have progressed to the point of treating myself with ibuprofen because of a food eating issue, perhaps its time to reconsider the whole patience thing.  I think it may be highly overrated.

And I think that's about all I have to say about that.