Cheese Man - Part I

“I was thinking we would have some fried mozzarella sticks, French onion soup and some kind of pasta, maybe fettuccini with melted cheese on top,” Michael told me.

“Every day, its cheese for every meal. I swear, Michael, I can’t take it any more. I need something real,” I said back.

“Lisa, baby, cheese is real food.”

“No it’s not. I’m sick of it.” I was shouting now. “Why can’t you be a real man? Why won’t you be like all the other guys, and make steak, or hot dogs, or burgers? Cheese, cheese, cheese. I can’t stand it anymore.”

“You can never go wrong with cheese.” He was yelling back now. Cheese is the most delicious food on the whole damn planet. It’s creamy, and smooth, and I love it. And I won’t stop eating it. Not for you, not for my doctor, not for anyone.”

Michael walked out of the bedroom, and I followed him. “For Christ sake, you have a dairy grill. You wear boxers with little squares of cheese and mice on them. It’s really sick. Don’t you ever want to just scream enough cheese? We’ve been married for six months, and I haven’t seen you eat a single piece of meat in all that time. What is with your obsession with cheese?”

Michael ignored me and sat on the couch. He turned on the TV. Cheese Freaks was on the Food Network, and he could not be disturbed while he was watching his show.

I walked out onto the balcony. Our neighbors were sitting on their balcony, on the sixth floor of our apartment building.

“I wish, for one night, Yitzi would let me cook some lasagna or baked Ziti,” Carol said to me. “Maybe we should swap husbands for dinner some time.”

I laughed. “You heard us?”

“Every word, Lisa. You know these walls are paper thin.”

I did know that. I knew that Yitzi and Carol, our newlywed next door neighbors, were trying to set some kind of newlywed lovemaking record. I knew Yitzi was a real man, tough and demanding and always eating meat. And I knew that there was something seriously wrong with Michael and his cheese obsession.

“That’s the third time this week I’ve heard you fighting over cheese,” Carol commented. “You guys might want to get into some kind of counseling for that.”

“I can just imagine that,” I told her. “Counselor, my husband is obsessed with cheese, and I can’t stand it. I think I would score at the very bottom of the complaint list. Oh god, sometimes I just wish he was dead.”

I walked back inside. Chef Marty was showing how to create a cheese diorama using cheddar and Muenster cheese.

I walked into our bedroom, turned on a baseball game, and watched the players beat each other up.

“You should be watching sports, like a real man,” I shouted into the next room.

“Screw you, Lisa,” he shouted back.

We didn’t talk during dinner. We sat on opposite ends of the table. He munched joyfully on his fried mozzarella sticks and fettuccini, while I ate carryout from the Chinese place around the corner. We did not talk at all during dinner.

We watched TV in silence, fortunate that we both liked the Thursday night television lineup. At least we wouldn’t be fighting over the TV.

The show ended, and Michael went into the bathroom that was connected to our bedroom. I wanted to use the second bathroom that was in the hallway of our two bedroom apartment, but I needed to get my Sally Hansen Spa Wax Hair Removal Kit. A quick glance in the mirror reminded me that I needed to take care of the hair growing above my upper lip.

The Shower CD that we had gotten from friends was blasting in the bathroom, and I’m sure Michael didn’t hear me coming. I heard him singing along with the CD, ‘N Sync, I think, and I rolled my eyes. I pushed the door open quickly.

I had no idea that Michael would be cleaning out his ears with a Q-Tip at that moment. I had no idea that he would be standing next to the door, his elbow out, digging furiously to try to clean out some hard to reach ear wax.

I also had no idea that when I pushed open the door, it would push his elbow toward him, pushing his hand toward his head, and forcing the Q-Tip through his ear, and into the brain.

I had no idea that the force of the Q-Tip going through his ear and into his brain would kill him before he hit the floor.

He didn’t even make a sound. I needed all my strength to force the door open, which was being held by his now dead body.

I forced my way into the small bathroom, his crumpled body now flopped over on the floor, and checked his pulse. There was nothing. Michael was dead, in a bizarre Q-Tip accident, and there was nothing I could do to bring him back. I reached under the sink, and took out my Sally Hansen Spa Wax Hair Removal Kit, and applied it to my upper lip. I watched TV for fifteen minutes until Sally Hansen had finished her important work, rinsed my face, and felt my smooth upper lip with my tongue. I was guaranteed to be hair free for the next eight weeks.

What do you do when you accidentally kill your husband, I wondered. And how long does it take before I get my life insurance check?

I didn’t know if I should call the police, the ambulance, or my rabbi. I didn’t want to get police involved, there was no crime here. It was too late for an ambulance. So I called my rabbi. He showed up twenty minutes later with two police officers who were just going to look around for a few minutes.

The preceding story is fiction. Any similarity between the characters to people in real life is merely coincidental.

Part Two