H'or Dourve Committee

And before you could say "Ala Kazaam!" here I am in the kitchen, being pressed into service as a handy slicer of Velveeta Cheese.

Marisa takes the big brick of Kraft out of deep freeze, strips off its tin foil, and says: "You ever cut up one of these?"

I shake my head emphatically.

Marisa whips out a 4-foot length of dental floss:

"Like this," she says, overlapping the floss around her wrists. Soon the floss is down to a foot in length, and she stands there, holding it like a garrote.

"Capisce?" hisses Marisa Tomei.

"Uhhhhhhhhhh…" I reply.

I had been chewing on a carrot, before the dream, and now a bolus of mush erupts from my esophagus, it spatters on the plate, making a pretty orange pattern like the end result of a furious Cheese Grate.

"Not like that!" says Marisa.

She brings the length of floss down on the Velveeta brick—a clean blow, like a guillotine, and a sudden soft shingle of processed cheese to show for it.

Marisa stands there, with the cheese garrote held at waist level…

Waiting.

"Well," Marisa says, "are you gonna cut it up… Or not?"

"Depends," I say. "Are any certain A - List Celebrities coming to our little dinner party tonight?"

That's when Marisa snaps—she wraps that length of dental floss around my neck, as if I were indeed now the Big Cheese in need of cutting. She twists, and squeezes, but only until I start to nod my head emphatically.

"You're the Carrot, I'm the Stick," Marisa said. "That Velveeta is what stands between us… CAPISCE?

I nodded, double-emphatically this time.

"WELL GET BUSY THEN!"

And I never knew, until precisely that moment, just how fine a Processed Cheese Slicer I could really be. And when I was done, Marisa and me were emphatically happy, once again, for all time.

Ready to receive our guests.