Here’s the thing about living alone: you get to eat all the cheese you want.

Those cheese trays, the ones with small sections within the plate to separate the different kinds of cheese, should be called trays of shame. You’re at some sort of public function, maybe prom or a wedding reception, any place where everyone’s self-esteem is already slightly lower than normal, and you see the ShameTray™ across the room with the various cheese cubes, all neatly sorted. On one hand, hooray! Free cheese! You’re the winner here! But on the other hand, you already know what’s coming, and even though you can anticipate the course of action that is in the very near future, there’s little that you can do to prevent it. It’s already in place. And walking across the room you can immediately feel yourself sitting on the toilet hours later with more regret than Tiger Woods HEYO sorry Tiger. Too soon.

Back to the cheese.

You make your way over to the table with the drinks and chips and cheese, and all your old friends are there. Chedder. Swiss. Colby. Brie. Oh hey Pepperjack! Your senses alert you to the presence of Cheese Whiz somewhere in the vicinity, but that would be going too far at an event like this, even for you. You have standards. You stand there, acting as if you’re debating as to which cheese cubes you will select, but in reality you’re waiting for a clearing.  You know that if you linger long enough, all the while putting off the vibe that you really don’t care about the cheese much at all, then eventually those around you will take what they need and vacate the area. “Here, let me pour you another drink Oh I spilled it on your nice white blouse better go clean that up LEAVE!” And eventually, everyone leaves, and that’s when you make your move.

First, you grab a small handful of chedder, but not too much because you need to be able to shovel all of it in your mouth at once. So you do that. You inhale the chedder, and under the assumption that no one saw you do so, you stand there in front of the tray as if you just walked up. Oh what do we have here? A cheese tray!

With chedder already consumed and everyone else none the wiser, you take from the other compartments, because you’re considerate of the other cheeses as well. Yes, yes, you chose chedder first, but that was a strategic move. If you would have chosen the pepperjack then there would have been the possibility of the existence of a rogue cube, a cube that got way too much pepper and not enough jack, and if that would have happened then you would have had to abandon the tray altogether and rush to get water, and the jig would be up. Everyone would know. Hey hey you guys, look who ate too much pepperjack! Aww is it too spicey for you? Poooor baby. (And then you’d punch him in the face and so on and so forth and all of a sudden you’re in the county jail. What are you in for? Pepperjack. Oh nevermind.)

So, assuming you haven’t been arrested yet, you partake of the other cheeses. At this point we can assume that other people have gathered to get drinks and food and such. You are, after all, standing in the grazing area where everyone goes to escape the awkward. Your predicament at that point is to figure out how much cheese is an acceptable amount to take for one person. You can, of course, play the I’m getting some for a friend card, but don’t. Everyone knows. You decide against the friend card, but you’re still stuck with the fact that, yes, you’d like to take the entire cheese plate out to your car, but that’s obviously not an option because you didn’t drive. You take a few cubes, then a few more, then just a couple more, but then you see it, and it stares right back at you. The bottom of the plate. That stupid, cheap plastic. You weren’t there before! There used to be a pile of cheese and now there’s plate and oh no everyone is watching.

“Is that cheese stuffed in your pocket?”

Again, this is the best thing I’ve found regarding living alone: you get to eat all the cheese you want.

In your living room, you sit down on your couch, which is mockingly short so you can’t lay on it, and you take your wheel of gouda which you’ve recently purchased, working away at it without any tray or wedding guests or prom dates in sight. And, of course, you use a knife to cut the cheese into pieces, because even though there is no ShameTray™ in the room, there’s still the shame that exists, even when you’re alone, of biting into a wheel of cheese, leaving only a trail of teeth grooves behind.