The things I do for cheese

I like cheese. There’s something, “Are you kidding me” about it. Maybe it’s the sweet softness that curdles my longings, and makes me forget all injustices. Or simply I like a product a cow had something to do with.

Anyway, I like cheese and the general store was out. They said it would be three days, or Thursday before they got their next shipment. I couldn’t wait that long, so I went home, got in my time-machine, and zipped to the general store on noon Thursday.

I could feel my mouth water as I walked to the cheese section. I was thinking about getting a big hunk of mozzarella and eating it like an apple out in the parking lot. I was upset though when I found the cheese section empty. I asked a grocery associate what time the cheese shipment would be arriving. She said sometime in the afternoon. Frustrated I got into my time-machine and rode to 3pm and the general store.

Again, no cheese. I asked a different associate what time he thought the cheese would be arriving. He said the cheese came out at 2 and was completely bought out by one person. I thought, “What the helI’s going in?!”

I got in my time-machine and rode to the general store at 1:55. I waited a handful of minutes outside the empty cheese section. At 2pm a great amount of cheese was brought out on a couple of carts by store associates. I told them not to bother putting it on the shelves. I would be buying all of it. There was no way I was going to let whomever it was purchase the lot.

I put $3,851 worth of cheese on my credit card. A handful of associates helped me push the carts to my time-machine in the parking lot. They helped with the packing. Some of the cheese went inside the time-machine, but a bunch of it had to be bungee corded to the top and the sides. Pretty soon there was no more room and I still had a half cart of cheese sitting out in the hot sun.

I got panicky thinking that the person who had previously bought all the cheese would swoop in and grab the remaining cheese. I paid each of the store associates ten dollars each to stand in a circle around me and the cheese, arms intertwined, facing outwards, while I proceeded to eat the remaining cheese.

I started with a large wheel of brie. Then I devoured a five pound square of Gruyère, and slurped down a party-sized tub of pineapple cottage cheese. By the time I gorged half a package of single prepackaged slices of American cheese I began to get a stomach cramp. I got down on my knees and tried to get back my bearings. One of the store associates turned around and asked if I was okay.

That’s about when I heard the scurrying. At first it was faint. But soon it picked up to a roar. The smell of melting cheese had attracted masses of mice from all quarters of the neighborhood. Most of the associates took off running. One remained, but after few bad scratches ran away.

The mice descended on the cheese. I tried to stand up, but the cramps overtook me. I curled up on the asphalt and passed out.

I woke up to the sound of purring mice. I was covered with hundreds of sleeping critters. I felt like I was laying under a vibrating rug.

Suddenly I got a craving for carrots.