KSK Off Topic: The Bleu Cheese Story

A couple weeks ago, I noted in a Jamboroo that I didn’t abide by bleu cheese dressing with buffalo wings. I was then sternly taken to task by members of the pro-bleu cheese community, which, like the cheese itself, is surprisingly robust. But I didn’t take the time to explain WHY I was so strongly against bleu cheese. Some people obviously like it, and some do not. But I am different. I have a history with bleu cheese.

You see, when I was a child, I adored bleu cheese. Loved it. Stilton, gorgonzola, saga bleu, you name it, I happily devoured it. Some girl said to me once, “You know it’s blue because it’s moldy, right?” And I said, “Really? That’s fucking cool!” I enjoy bleu cheese in all its delicious forms: on a cracker, on a steak, on a salad, on a GoBot. No matter the occasion, it was all good to me.

Until one day in college.

Upon returning home for Christmas vacation one year, my brother, his girlfriend, my sister and I all hit the mall one day to do some Christmas shopping. In the middle of the day, we went to go get lunch. We chose Pizzeria Uno.

Let me state this plainly: NEVER EAT AT FUCKING PIZZERIA UNO.

We ordered two pizzas. One was a veggie deep dish. The other was a sausage deep dish. Guess which one I ate. My brother and I split the sausage pie and then went about our business.

Then we got home. And that’s when the trouble started. Later in the afternoon, I noticed a distinct rumble in my stomach. As I do when trying to solve any problem, I laid down to see if it would simply go away. It did not. Soon it felt as if my stomach were being used as a set of bagpipes. My brother looked at me.

“Drew, you don’t look so hot.”

“Uh, maybe I should have something to eat.”

It was Christmas. I really didn’t want to be sick and miss out on all the food. So I tried eating. Bad move. By dusk, the retching began. As you know, I am a hugely talented projectile vomiter. It’s not unlike a dam breaking. My jaw unhinges and the maximum volume of vomit physically possible exits my body at an astonishing speed. My brother came into the bathroom to check on me. Oops. Suddenly, he wasn’t feeling so hot. We began taking turns having a Roman Holiday in the toilet.

All my life, vomiting always tended to make things better. But this was hardcore food poisoning, and it didn’t stop. Through the night, my brother and I traded dry heaves until my mother decided she could take no more and took us to an ER.

The ER made everything worse. I had to lay on the floor just to keep from doubling over, but the fluorescent light made me dizzy as shit. Next to us was a very old woman who also could not stop vomiting. Only when she did it, my brother and I found it HILARIOUS. It sounded like she was on a carnival ride she didn’t enjoy.

“OOOOO WAHHHHHH!!!! WOOOOO!!!! HO HO WHOOOOOOOAAAAA!!!!”

They shot us with some sort of anti-nausea medicine. It failed. Finally, doctors brought out suppositories.

“You two can’t keep anything down. We’ll have to go the other way.”

It was shaped like a little chalky missile. Fun! Not caring, I quickly jammed it up my ass. They gave us two more to take through the night. My mom drove us home. We both felt a little better. We thought we had turned a corner.

We were dead wrong.

For Christmas, my mother had bought a very large wheel of bleu cheese that she kept cool by covering with a cheesecloth and putting out on the breezeway between the garage and the main part of the house. You couldn’t get in the house without going through it. My brother and I had completely forgotten about this. And when we hit the door exiting from the garage…

Have you ever been truly sick and miserable, and so tired you’re practically near whimpering, only to be kicked while you‘re down? Imagine going to a doctor, only instead of treating you, the doctor wipes your face with a pair of used running socks.

It was like that.

We all have our food traumas in life that put us off something for good. This was mine. I’ll never eat bleu cheese again unless it’s by accident. In fact, whenever I see it, I now think:

“OOOOO WAHHHHHH!!!! WOOOOO!!!! HO HO WHOOOOOOOAAAAA!!!!”

And whenever I see a Pizzeria Uno, I think of jamming a chalky missile up my ass. Life’s a bitch sometimes.