THE PREGAME SHOW

Before I begin, don't let the title baffle you. I love cheese. LOVE IT. There's this real american cheese I get from the deli that owns my loyalty in the cheese world. It's the one they gave you free slices of as a kid for being that cute demi-human thing old people seem to love so much. These days I still get free cheese, but they don't like me half as much because I just stand there asking for "Samples" and don't buy anything.

[[TIP: Systematically sample slices of varying consistency, flavor, and thickness to insure optimal pilfering. Cheese is good. Free cheese is great.]]

But there's a dark underworld to cheese that resides in the backgrounds of nearly every aspect of American life, paid no attention by the average Joe or Jane. It's in every eatery from cafeterias in prisons to cafeterias in highschools. It's found in cheap sandwich shops, company picnics and the backyard of the malinformed home barbeque enthusiast. It goes by the deceptively productive-sounding name: Processed....Cheese. {Cue horror music}

HISTORY: PARAPHRASED BY ME FOR YOUR NONBOREDOM

First invented in 1911 Switzerland, it was "borrowed" by James L. Kraft, pattented in his name in the United States in 1916. The idea of acquiring good cheese in America was temorarily effed in the ay in 1950 when Kraft made processed cheese widely available and the market for it soared. Processed cheese, although simply manufactured by combining ingredients, "still legally qualifies as cheese." [[TMI: While typing that, I threw up in my mouth a little.]] Today it comes in individually wrapped packets, looks shiny, and not only melts to a consistency not unlike Rosie O'Donnel's asscheek, but tastes twice as horrifying. While I have no basis for comparison, I feel qualified to make the judgement simply by TASTING this cheesy abomination.

WHY IT PISSES ME OFF

This cheese has no real application in the world outside of fast food. Chances are if you're eating at McDonalds, the quality of the cheese you didn't taste in those two bites you managed to finish that burger in are the LEAST of your concerns. It's on page six, actually. Somewhere around "Cost of Bypass Surgery." Real cheese gets its flavor from mites. CHEESE MITES!!!! Bless those little bastards....because face it, processed cheese looks like plastic, tastes like plastic, has the nutritional value of plastic and comes wrapped...in plastic. Any food that's stored in plastics has molecules join the food, along with any chemicals in the structure itself. Enjoy your cheese, asshat. I'm not coming to your cookout.