Whoever coined the phrase “No matter how you slice it” obviously never ate American cheese.

You don’t need a license to have a child.

That can be a problem.

There are many people who have kids who probably wouldn’t have them if they first had to pass a parenting test and get their parenting license.

Well, there is something else you can do where you don’t need a license.

And it can also be a problem.

And that is slicing cheese at the deli.

Choosing a number at the deli is pretty much the equivalent of playing Russian roulette.

You don’t know who you’re going to get when your number comes up.

You watch.

You wait.

If you have ever spent any amount of time waiting in that line, then you know who the people working back there are.

The one who moves in slow motion.

Especially if you are in a hurry.

The one who is really nice to your kids and who understands the horrors of waiting in line forever at the fucking deli with a toddler.

There is the OCD one who takes great pride in how he lays down your cheese after it’s been sliced.

And then there is the asshole who might as well just hand you a one pound chunk of it and let you take it home and slice it yourself.

That’s the one I got yesterday.

We have some staple items in this house.

Peanut butter.

Ranch dressing.

And American cheese.

When we run out of those, you can see the withdrawal symptoms in the kids almost immediately.

They become irritable.

They start to sweat.

And they get the shakes.

So we were on day 3 with no American cheese.

I finally got some and brought it home.

“Lunchtime! Who wants some cheese?” I asked.

“Yay! Mommy, you got cheese at the store? Yay!!!”

So they sat there and they waited while I opened up the cheese.

I started to peel off the top slice.

And I succeeded in pulling off a piece that was approximately the size of a postage stamp.

I tried again.

Two postage stamps.

So  I took the top 3 slices and tried to peel them off. Then I would work my way down to one.

Well, I peeled off a strip about a half inch wide.

So I turned the whole hunk over and tried again from the bottom.

Another postage stamp.

Followed by a three layer strip.

And a string of obscenities.

“Mommy! I want some cheese!”

“Here, have these little pieces,” I said.

“I DON’T WANT LITTLE PIECES!!! I WANT A BIG PIECE!”

“Well, then you’ll have to wait.”

I gave the little pieces to the baby.

She threw them on the floor.

I went back to work on the hunk of cheese.

After approximately 5 minutes of surgeon-like precision and dexterity, I had…

Not one single slice of cheese.

But I did have about a pound of American cheese crumbles, 3 screaming kids who were in some serious cheese withdrawal, and zero patience.

I’ve always been kind of a cheese snob.

Only buying it sliced from the deli, and looking down on those Kraft-singles-buying people.

I don’t know.

I think it may be time to reevaluate.

I mean, how bad can a little cheese product really be?

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