One of the things I love almost as much as I love my little wife and giant baby is cheese. Also coming close is beer, the Chicago Cubs, the Chicago Bears, the rest of my family, my bike, Chuck; my Jeep, Jailbreak; my cat, Porkchop; AC/DC and Camel cigarettes, even though I no longer smoke. But this rant is not about any of the above, with the exceptio of cheese.
On my recent trip to the Pacific Northwest, I had the privilege of visiting the Tillamook Cheese factory while in ... uh ... Tillamook County, Oregon.
I've eaten a meeeeelion pounds of Tillamook chee in my time, so it was quite thrilling to visit and hear their story. The factory is a creamery as well as a chee-production, aging and packaging place, so the ice cream available at the place was outta sight. However, in spite of how much I enjoyed myself, I witnessed something that ended a myth-like thrill I'd get sometimes when opening a fresh brick of Tillamook chee.
The thrill would happen infrequently, but happened enough times to make me eagerly anticipate it happening again: The Bonus Slice. I would rip open a brick and begin to slice or shred and - lo and behold - a bonus slice would be piggybacking the brick! Awesome! I considered myself the lucky recipient of the chee I paid for and a bonus slice, mistakenly put there by a near-sighted packer or a malfunctioning slicer. This was not to be.
Dig if you will the picture:
This gal is doing her job at the factory while simultaneously shooting to shit my dream of periodically being the lucky recipient of a bonus slice of chee.
She's taking each block off the conveyor and weighing each. For those that are too heavy, she deftly slices off a shaving (throwing the shaving in the bin screen right) and for those not up to weight ... ADDING A GODDAMN BONUS SLICE! FOK!
So as the ice cream melted in all the tourists' sugar cones around me in the viewing area, so did my dream of being sometimes-lucky-in-cheese. I'll never be the same.
Tonight - Lucky 13.
Happy Birthday Jason Chester Porter! It was a day or so ago, but celebrate tonight! Happy Birthday Joan Bittner! It's her bday today! Celebrate tonight!
NOTE: Don't click on the images above ... Blogger is fuct and won't load them in their own windas. It crams them in this one. Lame.
bye-ee!
whrr ... clik!
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