The errant
slice of American
cheese
that ended up on
the bathroom
floor
has baffled all
investigators for more
than fifty years.
Its softened edges,
missing corner,
and sweaty
surface
reside far back
in my
brain’s
mystery album.
Not a single
one of us four
kids
admitted to
tossing it
beside the
gray porcelain
stool
and double-hung
window
on that muggy
summer day.
Lined up, we
all shook our heads
adamantly
and
stood
our ground.
“It wasn’t me!”
we chorused.
“Who would
take a slice
of cheese
into the bathroom?”
(None of us!)
“Who would eat cheese
in the bathroom?”
(Ewww, not
any of us!)
“Why would anyone
fling perfectly good cheese on the
linoleum floor
when a wastebasket
was only four feet
away?”
(Maybe one of us?)
Was it an experiment?
Was it planted there
on purpose?
Was it a joke?
Not for our
mother, who'd recently
spent our father’s
hard-earned salary
on new-fangled
individually-wrapped
American cheese
instead of
the cheaper, off-brand
loaf that
peeled off
in chunks.
We’d gobbled it up.
And promptly
gone back
to the loaf.
Maybe the wilting
cheese was a
statement,
a sort of physical review,
daringly published
for anyone
who cared to stare
down at the floor
while doing
their business:
Individually-wrapped
cheese
is superior!
Loaf cheese
is only fit
to melt
on the
bathroom floor!
We may never know
who threw the cheese.
But I still wonder.
