There’s something about the holidays that convinces people they’re expert chefs. You’re cooped up at home with lots of free time, you keep seeing recipes for delicious cookies and other treats online and in the New York Times, and you start thinking, “Hey, it can’t be that hard!” Then you pour molten sugar onto your marble countertop and destroy it in the process.

@410dwill45tv How to NOT make Candy Canes #candycanes ♬ original sound - Dwill 2.0

At least that’s what one man did in a video he shared to TikTok. He opens the video excitedly talking about the fact he’s hoping to make candy canes and proceeds to pour sugar that’s boiling at a temperature of 303 degrees directly onto his marble countertop. You can hear him say, “Okay, this is a marble counter so this shouldn’t burn, I’m about to pour this on the raw counter,” but I wish he’d instead given us a monologue explaining why he thought this would be a good idea. He even hints at what’s to come, telling viewers, “My girl’s going to be pissed if I can’t get this off!” Yeah, she will be.

He then turns the camera onto himself as he adds peppermint flavoring before attempting to lift the now-hardened candy-cane mixture using two spatulas and realizing that he cannot. The mixture hardened in about two minutes, essentially turning into sugary-sweet epoxy that no amount of prayer could free from that marble countertop.

After trying to hack away at the stuff and only managing to break off small chunks, he cries, “That shit can harden fast!” before tasting a sample and sighing, “That would’ve been a good candy cane too, y’all.”

Commenters were in stitches at the dude’s dilemma, although several commiserated with him, with one writing, “I really thought I was going to learn something today.” Hey, you learned something — not to pour candy-cane mixture directly onto your countertop.

Another commenter pointed out that at businesses where you can make your own candy, they have warming pipes running underneath the table tops, preventing this exact situation from happening. Oops.

@410dwill45tv Replying to @MYJAH #live ♬ original sound - Dwill 2.0

For those wondering, OP has since posted several more videos of his attempts at making candy canes, and based on how they’ve turned out, it would seem the universe was trying to tell him something when it thwarted his first attempt. Some things should be left to the professionals.