Me and the Cheese Case

Lately I’ve been tired of the same old, same old cuisine. I tend to cook a lot of the tried-and-trues for a few weeks and then I get sick of it all and want new things to explore with my taste buds. So, this week I’ve planned for a week of dinners that I’ve never made before.

When I went grocery shopping to buy the ingredients, there were naturally many items that I wasn't sure where exactly to locate. It took me forever-and-a-day to find stuff. And, to make matters worse, I didn’t head out the door until 11:00 p.m.

I’m convinced that people who grocery shop until midnight are either crazy or desperate, and definitely tired.

So, there I was, a crazy, desperate, tired person moving my cart through the aisles, trying in vain to find things like Kahlua for coffee crème brulee, lemon grass and fish sauce for Thai soup, and gruyere cheese for a Panini recipe.

It wouldn’t have been so bad except for the fact that, as I was standing over the imported cheese counter, squinting my eyes to find the gruyere, my grocery list (which included the planned-out menu for the week) fell through the slat of the cheese display. The slat was only about a half inch thick and my grocery list must have been just vertical enough to easily fall through it.

What are the chances of that?

At first I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t move on without my list because I had spent about an hour putting it together and had only just begun my shopping. I found a lady sweeping up behind the deli counter who looked to be about a hundred years old. I asked her if she could help me, presuming that she would call some robust man to come take the display apart and find my list. Instead, she started moving cheeses and attempting to dismantle the display herself.

The worst part is that I couldn’t remember exactly where I was standing when I dropped my list. So, we moved a bunch of cheese, lifted up a large slat in the case (it took both of us to do the lifting), and the list wasn’t there. We rearranged the cheeses, moved more cheeses, and lifted up a second slat. It wasn’t there either.

By that time, the lady looked at me like I was on drugs or something and asked, “So, you don’t know where you were standing?” I told her that I thought we should try one more area of the case and fortunately it was there—my little grocery list written on yellow legal paper! Relief!

The cheese case was a mess by the time we got through. We tried to put everything back but it was obvious that it had been sorely tampered with. The previously neat little rows of overlapping cheeses were now in complete disarray.

To my surprise, the elderly worker lady said, “Ah, as good as new!” Then she added, “I won’t be here tomorrow. No one will know.”

I seriously doubt I will ever let my grocery list near a cheese display ever again.