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Roxy screwed their tongue up out of their mouth, cursing the incongruities of self that gave their a 90+ wpm on a keyboard but making their completely incapable of holding a knife with any particular skill. Sometimes, G-d just came down and went, "You are too awesome, so you are now going to be nerfed into the ground". Holding the onion with an onion-crushing vicegrip (somehow failing to do just that, but keeping it more than steady enough), they slowly sawed off the fuzzy, root-y top like they was creating a lid on a teapot. they put down the knife on their bamboo cutting board, which was usually used more by their spouse than them. Unable to manageably remove just the brownish-greenish outer skin, they settled for cutting a small notch in the outside and beginning to laboriously peel the entire outside layer, quietly lamenting the loss of material.
They tried very hard not to cry, wiping their eyes with the back of their wrist as they slowly ripped chunks of onion off the outside of the vegetable and tossed them in the trash. Then, putting it on its (mostly) flattened new top, they noticed a small speckling of brownish dirt on the interior and let out an annoyed grunt, quickly giving the (new) outer layer of the onion a rinsing under the sink, scrubbing the dirt off with their thumb. They tried not to stare too hard at their slowly cracking black nail polish. It definitely needed a refresh, and they definitely owed themselves a manicure after this nightmare. They looked back towards the onion with a hateful glare, despairing at its greenish-white flesh, its firm, crunchy texture, and its agonizing, tear-inducing scent. Why did they wear makeup for preparing dinner? That should've come afterwards. Roxy, you goof.
Okay, now that it was a clean onion, they tried to do that thing they saw everyone do on YouTube. They chopped it in half through the middle, putting each new half along the cutting board on its now-flattest side. They grabbed one with their entire left hand, very slowly and carefully sawing into it with their knife until it felt like they was going to cut through it, and then moving up a centimeter or two, and doing another cut, and so on, accidentally fucking up on the very last cut and just cutting the side of the onion off. God damnit, they were trying to do the fancy dicing thing. they frustratedly tossed the detritus into the trash can, grabbing the onion once more and slowly, ponderously moving the knife downwards in a way that would produce, hopefully, very small cubes when they ran through it laterally.
Now that the onion half was prepared as best as they could get it prepared, with off-center squares and rectangles and other four sided polygons suffused through its surface, almost completely falling apart, Roxy let out a little shrill noise of anger and then took several dozen deep breaths. They got a paper towel and wiped their eyes, trying to avoid getting any onion juices in their eyes. Why did G-d decide to make a vegetable like this? This was a nightmare. Cutting things was a nightmare, actually, they would rather just let their partner do it, but Roxy was trying to give them something nice to come home to. So. Worth the frustration.
They slowly rolled their knife in the most professional feeling way they could accomplish, very slowly sawing it across the cuts. There was a moment of pure, agonizing amazement, a flood of successful serotonin as the onion proceeded to fall apart into a bunch of tiny little cubes (or cuboids, really). And then, a second cut, and they fell apart again! Another pile of diced little squares. Success! They slowly moved their knife across, and across, and across, each dice making them feel a little bit better about their decision to take dinner into their own hands. Their hand inched backwards with each cut, using their knuckles to brace the flat of the blade against, just like they had watched people do on Food Network on the occasions when it was possible to watch without thinking about Guy Fieri. Bad memories - it was why they mostly stuck to home chefs on YouTube.
One of these G-d damned days they would have actual knife skills, but that was evidently not today, as Roxy was stuck at a loss when their fingers moved back to the heel of the onion, where their cuts hadn't pierced all the way through. It wouldn't dice without those cuts, and it was also pretty much impossible to hold onto with her left hand and cut with her right, just sort of geometrically impossible.
So they threw it in the trash. Eyes thoroughly saturated with tears, and forehead beaded with sweat, they stared towards the second half of onion with fire and hatred in their eyes. Instead of dealing with that, they thought "Fuck that", or something of the sorts, and went to wash their hands. Dried off with a paper towel, and then running the knife under hot water. Another wedding gift, the knife set was, a solid piece of metal that probably looked a lot prettier than it was functional, but it did make it easy to clean. A little bit of soap went into the sponge, because Roxy was a functional human being that knew how to perform basic kitchen cleaning tasks after years of living mostly isolated, and, NOT using the scrubby side (they had made that mistake only once), proceeded to wipe it clean. Several times, so they didn't have to think about Onion Scent.
More paper towels, to dry things off. A rusted blade was a dull blade which could risk injury, which was bad, or at least they were told. They set the knife down on the cutting board, pulled open a nearby cabinet, grabbed a ziploc bag, and put the second half of onion in it, fumbling to seal it shut. Kicking the fridge door open, they fastballed the bag into the back of the refrigerator, wincing slightly as the onion basically burst into pieces on impact. Oh well, that was what blenders and soup were for.
They turned now to the celery. How much harder could this be?