I spent Thanksgiving with my friend Cindy and her family in a neighboring town. Her youngest son skillfully cut the outside of a stick of sugar cane off with a knife so that i could try a few pieces. It was fairly good so he made me a to go bag of sugar cane pieces for the road. I was told that you sort of suck all the juices out of the piece and then spit the pulp out. Well, not wanting to waste any bit of it i was sort of mashing it with my teeth to make sure i got every last drop of liquid out of there before i discarded the pulp. This may have been a rookie mistake. Im not sure. I was too embarrassed to fess up about the result and ask for clarification on extraction technique. I cut my tongue pretty good in four different places. It was incredibly painful and it took a concerning amount of time to stop bleeding. For a couple days i had to chew on one side of my mouth only to keep from reopening the deepest gash. My dentist banned me from using electric toothbrushes because i press so hard the motor stops turning the brush. I feel that i may have applied this technique to chewing sugar cane and then reaped the results of my all or nothing personality. Sugar cane is probably going into that new category with cactus pears…things i like the taste of but shouldn’t be left alone with.