Workplace Bugs: How to Cut an Apple into Three Pieces and the Story of the Missing Chef

It was the company lunch break. I took the coffee I'd brewed at the tea dispenser and moved to the standing table in the open space.

Then, my junior colleague Miyake-san, who had been looking at his smartphone, suddenly looked up and spoke to me.

“Keimei-san, did you know? They say there are kids who can't cut an apple into three pieces.”

“What? There are people like that?! It’s such a simple thing.”

“That’s true, but I guess they don’t have a sense of ‘cutting it into equal sizes’. Apparently, it’s common among kids who don’t have siblings.”

“Ah, that kind of story, huh.”

“Huh? What other kind of story is there besides that?”

“I thought it was simple to divide an apple into three parts: the ‘peel’, the ‘flesh’, and the ‘core’.”

“Huh?!”

“That’s why. Instead of cutting it into three equal pieces, you divide it into ‘peel,’ ‘flesh,’ and ‘core’. The person who wins rock-paper-scissors gets to choose what they want first. Assuming the first person chooses the ‘flesh’, the problem is the second person. The third person has no choice left, after all.”

“I don’t really get it, but.”

“In other words, the second person’s dilemma is whether to choose the ‘peel’ or the ‘core’, that’s what I mean.”

“But, you might be able to eat the ‘peel,’ but the ‘core’ is no good, right?”“

That’s not true. Since you’re cutting it with a knife, there’s still some flesh attached to the ‘core.’ It’s like a ‘spare rib.’ Even with that, you gnaw on the little bit of meat left around the bone in a pathetic way. That part is supposed to be thrown away, right?”“Isn’t it not supposed to be thrown away? It’s because it tastes better with the bone, right?”“Is that so?



I have an image of ‘spare ribs’ as ‘a vagrant’s feast.’ But if that logic holds, maybe the apple ‘core’ could even end up on a restaurant’s dessert menu.”

“I don’t want a restaurant that sad!”

“Then, we’ll add the ‘peel’ for a touch of style.”

“Add the flesh! I want the fruit pulp!”

“I’m sorry. Our chef can’t cut an apple properly.”

“A chef like that should be fired! Fired!”

Miyake-san said that and stood up from his seat. And so, the chef who invented Japan’s first “

dessert using apple cores” disappeared without anyone ever knowing.