At Thanksgiving I tasted a spicy Wisconsin cheddar that was delicious. It combined everything I loved about cheese with something risque. I think it was jalapeño. Did you know the only way to put the wavy thing over the “n” is to Google a spanish word, copy the “n,” and then paste it? Maybe that isn’t the only way, and I’ve proven something about myself that I don’t want to admit. Or maybe I am admitting it. Either way, right now it hurts to spit.

Earlier tonight, hours before I struggled to get my wife to go to sleep so I could enjoy 3 episodes of the Tonight Show, half of Bill Moyers Journal, and a porch ss, I went to the grocery store to pick up a few ingredients to make cookies. I don’t make cookies. Nothing could be stupider to me than baking cookies. I’ll eat a couple cookies if they’re forced on me, but usually I just think about how stupid they are. Anyway, my part in things was to buy some ingredients, and while I was at the store I was talking to myself. I went by the deli area and all the artisan cheeses were there. I’m not a cheese connoisseur. I love cheese, but most of the time I’m slicing Kraft cheddar. That was pretty much an actual quote of my brain. Because it’s paraphrased, I left out quotation marks.

Several grocery store trips before this I’d remembered Thanksgiving and wanted to try to find a nice chipotle cheddar, but had forgotten. This time, however, I was determined to do it. I’d just spent a good 10 minutes looking for molasses, so at that point I just wanted to find it quickly and get the hell out of there. I saw what I thought was a similar cheese. I read the word “cheddar” and saw the obvious pepper pieces mixed in, so I put it in my basket like a good urban citizen and went through checkout.

I must be blind. I just had some of that cheese, and it is so damn spicy it makes my freaking elbows itch. I took a bite and immediately knew I’d not read everything. And there it was. Habanero. Not only in a stupid font, but also pictured. My mouth is on fire. This cheese is good, but man, it’s hard to see the point in it. Also, let it be known that Sam Adams is no match for the habanero pepper. If the English had this cheese, all those original rabble rousing Pats fans would have curled up into balls and paid them taxes.

Them taxes was much, but this spicy cheese is much mores. Oh man. Oh.