Pantaleo

Though I run outside I still act like a hamster on a wheel. I've done the same route for a good two years now. Except for Sunday, when I decided some cheese would be nice. So I ran a slightly altered route. Three-quarters of the way through, I stopped in at a cheese shop all beet red and a-sweaty, a cheese shop where I hope am not famous for my practice of stopping by to eat a bunch of samples and leaving without buying anything.

But not this time! I marched right up to the a cheesemonger and asked for something that tastes like a meadow in summertime and would be good in an egg sandwich. Then, realizing I sounded like an asshole, I said how about something grassy that would be good in an egg sandwich. The cheesemonger, who had something orange on his nose, sliced a sliver off a cheese made with the milk of goats who feed under a lemon tree in Italy. It was awesome. And thirty-five dollars a pound. I asked the cheesemonger if he had something similar for under twenty.

Then I told him he had something orange on his nose. He wiped it off and said thanks and wondered why nobody'd told him. I managed to not share the story about the time I went to a party and just one person out of the 20 guests told me I had the biggest black booger he'd ever seen stuck on the side of my nose, and I didn't believe him, and it was a sleepover party, and when I looked in the mirror the next morning, well, wouldn't you know it.

The now-no-longer-orange-nosed cheesemonger cut a slice of a less expensive but still yummy goaty goat cheese. I bought some, ran home holding it in one gloved hand, ate too much of it, and got a stomachache and gas that was smelly in direct proportion to the deliciousness level of the cheese.

The cheese was very, very delicious.