{"id":97057,"date":"2016-04-18T15:30:23","date_gmt":"2016-04-18T19:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=97057"},"modified":"2016-04-18T13:59:04","modified_gmt":"2016-04-18T17:59:04","slug":"the-cheese-guy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/18\/the-cheese-guy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cheese Guy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

From a 1930 Italian\u00a0cheese advertisement.<\/p><\/div>\n

I used to like buying cheese. You could say it was one of the small, reliable pleasures of my week. I never bought a great deal\u2014usually just a small piece to eat for lunch with some bread and fruit\u2014but I enjoyed the process of tasting and learning and then bearing home the neatly wrapped little waxed-paper bundle.<\/p>\n

The cheese guy was nice, too. Knowledgeable without making a big show of it, authoritative without snobbery, and pleasantly detached. It was this detachment, in a way, that allowed me to enjoy the transaction\u2014he never made a big fuss about my being a regular. I felt slightly invisible, but in the best possible way. It would have been awkward if he\u2019d been flirtatious or overly friendly. And he never made me try more cheeses than I wanted, which I thought was nice. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Then one day something strange happened. I had purchased a set of sheets at a white sale. The sheets were, in fact, printed\u2014with a whimsical motif of mermaids and mermen and branches of coral. I\u2019d liked them because their soft colors had reminded me of a beloved children\u2019s book,\u00a0Deep Sea Farm<\/a><\/em>. But one night I was reading in bed and I realized the little merman on my pillowcase reminded me of something else: the cheese guy! He had the same distinctive pompadour of hair and kind of barrel-chested build and, yes, that was his nose! Really, it was remarkable! I debated drawing my husband\u2019s attention to it, but I wasn\u2019t sure he knew what the cheese-store guy looked like.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Several times in the cheese store I thought of bringing it up. I even snapped a picture on my phone. But I couldn\u2019t think of a way that wouldn\u2019t be deeply strange and make him uncomfortable. I blushed just thinking about it. I began to avoid going to the cheese store, and when a friend came over for dinner, I asked her to provide the cheese course.<\/p>\n

She brought a delicious piece of cheese. And she brought tales: the cheese guy, it seemed, had been very friendly. Flirtatious, even. He\u2019d gotten her phone number. \u201cHe made me try so many cheeses!\u201d she said, when she refused seconds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to show you something,\u201d I said, and led her into the bedroom. She stared in silence.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the cheese guy,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see it,\u201d she replied.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUncanny, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure she thought it was uncanny. But in the coming days, the cheese guy sent her texts that were so sleazy and risible that I was ashamed for him, and I had to stop buying cheese, and of course I have not used those sheets since.<\/p>\n

Sadie Stein is contributing editor of <\/em>The Paris Review, and the <\/em>Daily\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I used to like buying cheese. You could say it was one of the small, reliable pleasures of my week. I never bought a great deal\u2014usually just a small piece to eat for lunch with some bread and fruit\u2014but I enjoyed the process of tasting and learning and then bearing home the neatly wrapped little […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[11354,21997,12511,21999,115,22000,21998,6664],"class_list":["post-97057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-cheese","tag-cheesemongers","tag-city-life","tag-deep-sea-farmer","tag-food","tag-mermen","tag-sheets","tag-shopping"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Affections of the Cheese Guy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In which Sadie Stein learns more than she cared to know about the man who sells her cheese.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/18\/the-cheese-guy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Cheese Guy by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"April 18, 2016 \u2013 I used to like buying cheese. 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