An apple a day...

will either keep the doctor away or send you right to the dentist, depending on what you do with that apple.

This afternoon, my good friend and I decided it would be the perfect day to go apple picking. The "U-Pick" type, where the orchard releases you upon their trees and you just pull as many as you want (or can afford) off of their trees. However, upon arriving at said orchard, a half an hour later, we find out that it's too late in the season. They had already pulled all of their apples off the trees and the only apples we could get were in baskets in their store. Awkward. So being the mature adults we are, my friend and I decided to never go back there again. 

This evening, we decided to make caramel apples instead. Why not? We wanted our daily dosage of apples, some way, somehow. So out to the grocery store we go. We buy caramels and head to my house, where a good sized stock of apples lay waiting for us. It went brilliantly. And by brilliantly I mean awful. I can now give you a long list of reasons of how not to make caramel apples and why you should just go to the grocery store and buy pre-made ones.

1. Don't assume you won't need that much caramel. You will. Just dump the entire bag in. If you don't you'll run out and your apples will suck. Seriously. If you have some leftover in the pan after, no loss. You could just try covering random things in caramel, like pretzels or crackers or carrots or something.
2. Butter your wax paper. If you didn't already know this, you should put your drying caramel apples on wax paper, to help keep them from sticking to anything. But actually, this won't be enough. Unless you enjoy wax paper in your caramel, remember to butter that baby up.
3. Just use one batch of caramel. Something weird happens to it if you try to add more to a meager amount of already melted caramel. I seriously peeled the caramel off my apple and just ate it plain. That was the stuff you build houses from, not caramel. 
4. Just don't do it. You probably won't succeed in creating these wonderful creations, no matter how skilled you are in the culinary arts. I'm pretty sure only Emeril has been able to achieve the delicious sugar-coated fruits without help from a machine. And let's face it: you're no Emeril.
5. It's cheaper. Most caramel apples will cost less than five dollars in most grocery stores. However, the average chipped tooth repair can run you anywhere from $150-$1000 USD. Which would you rather pay?

In summary, you aren't a good enough cook, you don't have sufficient funds, and it's way easier to just buy caramel apples in the store. I understand that you're trying to be all creative and stuff. That's cool. Bake some cookies instead. You're less likely to be disappointed and/or injured during the process.