Some Nights Are Best Served with Cheese

My refrigerator before tonight's little adventure

It is late. I cannot sleep. The walls shake and the cupboards rattle. At any minute I expect blood to drip down from the ceiling. I am suddenly paying rent to live in The House on Haunted Hill, the classic 1959 William Castle version and not the gimmicky 1999 remake. The couple next door continues to celebrate their wedding night, though I swear they first met earlier today during an unfortunate fender bender that has now turned into another sort of bender, both ear piercing in lustfulness and downright objectionable in its intensity. The unusual sounds of squealing pot bellied pigs seeping outward from their apartment walls confuse me, for our units have a strict “No Pets” clause.

Faux Southern California earthquakes make me hungry for cheese. Wisconsin dairy products clog my arteries with abandon. I have a wide variety of brightly colored cheese packages lying around on the floor, thanks to spasmodic movements of my refrigerator. Many are from Brennans Cellars of New Glarus, Wisconsin. I have a friend in Madison who, throughout the year, sends me various cheese blends for she believes I have written her into my will. I have, but only for my eight tracks and early 1980’s Walkmans.

I’m a certifiable cheesehead, so I gobble my bacterial cultures raw from the package. If alfresco dining means eating on the floor with crackers found under chairs, the use of broken plastic knives with things walking on them, the carpet as a napkin, and a Hamm’s beer found from last weekend’s party, then I’m living a tailgater’s life. Thank goodness the Wi-Fi works so close to the litter box, or I wouldn't be able to write this post at all.

It appears tonight will go on forever. Damn the young and their silly endurance games! When I was their age, I spent my Saturday nights playing Guts behind the Big Red Gym with normal reprobates who went on to become lawyers and judges. Now that sweat-inducing activity took stamina! Today's kids have no inkling the difficulties of playing poker in blizzard conditions.

Tonight's edible delicacy is something called Pesto Jack. The wrapping says it can be wonderfully melted on baguettes. Baguettes! You must be joking. I don't eat French unless its fries or toast. The last time I ate something called a "fromage", I was arrested in Paris for brutalizing the language.

As I listen ever so closely to the hanging and banging next door, I offer Cheeseman: The Movie, a hard-hitting piece of cheddar from a very talented young American animator, Thomas Crook, living, I believe, in England and thus, far far away from this madding crowd.

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