Cheese.
I was sitting at my kitchen table fighting over a pot of boiling cheese dip when it happened. My little brother got overzealous with his cheese. As he lifted the burning cheese above me, dangling dangerously on his chip, it suddenly gave into gravity and fell onto my arm. We all silently stared at the contrast of the yellow cheese against my stark white skin. Then a cry rang out. "CHEESE!!!"
Instead of doing something to help myself, I looked frantically at each of my family members and repeated that single word over and over. "Cheese! Cheese! Cheese!" My younger sister, being a ginger, started laughing at me and then ate another chip. My younger brother, the cheese offender, just stared at me in shock. I can't recall what my parents were doing. I don't think they cared about anything except the fact that my shouts were disturbing the dog.
Eventually, my little brother grabbed me a paper towel and I wiped the burning hot mess (I've always wanted to be referred to as such) away. (And yes, I was still tempted to eat the cheese that had just been wiped from my arm. Our cheese dip is that good.) My mom got me an ice pack to put on my arm and life went on as usual.
A few days later, I came to a sudden realization as I was complaining about something in my life. Instead of facing my problems and trying to fix them, I often just stare at them and shout "Cheese!" (Metaphorically speaking of course; I don't literally shout "cheese" at my problems.) Rather than facing things head on, I have a tendency to look around at other people for the answers to my problems, and if I don't get one, instead of wiping up the cheese myself, I wait for it to cool on my arm. If people could physically see all the cheese (I hope everyone has caught on at this point that "cheese" and "problems" are interchangeable) that I have ignored in my life, I would look like the swamp thing emerging from a vat of cheese dip.
So with the new year and all, my goal is to start facing the cheese head on. (You should all know and appreciate that I am working really hard to resist jokes about "cutting the cheese" and such.) When problems arise this year, I'm going to stop passing the buck and start being proactive. As they say, you can't decide whether or not you get burned by the cheese, you can only decide how you react to it. (I'm not sure who "they" are, but I'm pretty sure someone said something like that.)
Happy New Year!
