"The Restless Cheese"

[paul johnson]

paul johnson
Are they moving because they can't stand the smell? I mean, who wants to
live near the Limburger factory?

On 10/30/2011 7:53 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> No, not an Australian soap opera.  Or the Sandra Dee movie that
> Wikipedia doesn't seem care about.  But that on the shelves at Trader
> Joe's, uneasy after all those years in dark caves, and compelled to
> confirm the truth that "the cheese stands alone".  I can see them
> every night, after all the tropical-shirted employees have left for
> the day, hopping down from the shelves, scattering themselves on the
> floor, getting as far away from each other as possible, and standing
> lonely but erect.  (With the power of palm computers these days -- or
> nights -- the best arrangement can be determined
> algorithmically.)  Early the next morning, select employees arrive to
> replace the cheeses on the shelves.  But in the rush to complete
> their task, the cheeses are put back in the first convenient spots,
> after which the various signs are moved about to label them correctly.
>
> But who would want to buy, let alone eat, a cheese that had grown
> restless?
>
> Joel
> Composed while contemplating snow
>
> At 10/30/2011 12:33 AM, Michael McKernan wrote:
>> On Sat, Oct 29, 2011 at 7:18 PM, Laurence Horn
>> <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:
>>
>>
>> > ...because, well, the cheese just gets restless.  And the crackers,
>> and
>> > the chocolate bars, and the cereals.
>> >
>>
>> Wait a minute!  A central tenet of my upbringing (and perhaps the only
>> proof that I had one) is that:
>>
>> "The cheese stands alone!"
>>
>> Thousands of observations appear to confirm this dictum, so don't go
>> lumping the cheese together with "the crackers, and the chocolate
>> bars, and
>> the cereals," no matter how these, or any other commodities, may wander.
>> If you persist in such unwarranted conglomeration, I may be left with no
>> upbringing at all, upon which to hang my hat.
>>
>> Any perceived mobility of the cheese is much more likely to be due to
>> the
>> regular maintenance required to preserve its splendid isolation, than
>> anything like "restless"-ness.  Other products very possibly may not
>> rest
>> in peace, but I repeat that only:
>>
>> "The cheese stands alone!"
>>
>> Michael McKernan
>> Benson, Arizona
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

--
"Logic is the enemy of faith"

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org