There Was Supposed to Be Cheese in This

There was supposed to be cheese in this.

“Excuse me,” I said to the man next to me, who was nodding at his laptop. He removed his headphones. “There was supposed to be cheese in this.”

He said: “I’m in a meeting, man.”

There was supposed to be cheese in this.

I took another bite; maybe I haven’t reached the cheese yet. The display said there were “pockets of pecorino dispersed evenly throughout.”

Unbelievable, still no cheese. Just bread. If I wanted just bread, I would have ordered just bread, but I wanted bread with cheese because I didn’t want just bread; I wanted bread with cheese.

“There was supposed to be cheese in this,” I said aloud through a mouthful of bread. The bakery was bustling, and the tables around me were mostly full of people ‘working from home,’ so no one paid me any attention.

Actually, one lady did hear me, it turned out. She glared at me with a combination of intrigue and disgust. I swallowed, then shrugged at her and gestured to the bread in front of me. “There was supposed to be cheese in this!”

“Who cares, it’s just cheese,” she said, with menacing eyes and brows. She went back to working on her laptop.

I shrugged and said under my breath, “I care. I wanted bread with cheese. Not just plain bread.”

I looked around the bakery. No one else cared. That lady was still staring at me. She was mouthing something, but I couldn’t make out what she was trying to say. It kind of looked like she was barking at me.

Is she barking at me? Finally, I understood the message.

“Eat it,” she was mouthing. “Just eat it. It’s just cheese.”

“It’s not just cheese!” My blurt gained some attention, sad to admit. The it’s-just-cheese lady jumped back in her seat and shrank behind her MacBook. People in line paused their conversations and turned toward me. I looked around as if I too were searching for the source of the shouting.

“Who said that?” I said.

I played it cool enough, and conversations returned. I did see two members of the staff snickering and pointing at me. I might have been made.

The damn lady is still peering at me from behind her laptop shield. She’s looking at me like I’m some circus act. “Stop it!” I said.

“It’s just cheese,” she hissed.

“It’s not! Cut it out!” I hissed back.

“Eat it!”

“No! I will not!”

“Dude, are you okay?” It was the guy in the meeting next to me.

“There was supposed to be cheese in this. And there’s not. It’s just plain bread. And I didn’t want just plain bread, I wanted bread with cheese. And now, this crazy lady over there is forcing me to eat it, saying it’s just cheese. But it’s not just cheese. So, no, everything is very much not okay, my friend. Not okay.”

“Dude, just eat the fucking bread. Or go get a new piece.”

“But I’ve already eaten half of this piece, so they’re going to make me buy a new piece. Because the truth is, dude, I didn’t ask for the one with cheese. I asked for the plain one, but I didn’t mean to. I meant to ask for the one with cheese, but I tripped over my words, and I didn’t want to admit that I meant to say the cheese one when I accidentally said plain. I have ordering anxiety, which means sometimes I blurt out something I don’t mean to order because there is a line forming behind me. Damn it, I don’t want this one, I want the cheese one.”

“Shut the fuck up, I’m working here,” said the guy next to me as he put his headphones back in and apologized to his Zoom room, referring to me as “some crazy guy upset about bread.”

The lady was glaring, even meaner now than before, almost snarling. “You’re a baby,” the lady said, with a crying motion. “Just eat it, you baby.”

“What?! I am not a baby!” Let’s just say that was loud enough that a lot of heads turned. I retreated into my seat and took a meek bite of the plain bread in front of me.

There was supposed to be cheese in this.

The lady was pleased by my embarrassment. She pointed and laughed and said, “Don’t cry, baby.”

“I’m not going to cry,” I said quietly to myself this time. I ripped off a small piece of bread, about the size of a die, and threw it at the lady. I bounced off the back of her laptop and fell to the floor.

“What the hell are you doing, man? You need to get it together,” said the guy next to me.

“I can’t. I physically cannot. There was supposed to be cheese in this.” I picked up the bread and flipped it from my table onto his. It landed squarely on the keyboard of his computer. He looked out at, took a deep breath, then very calmly placed it back on my table.

He raised his eyebrows, turned off his Zoom camera, and pointed at me while uttering, “Don’t fuck with me, crazy bread guy, or I’ll give you the fucking cheese.” Then resumed his camera feed.

Give me the fucking cheese?

I didn’t want that guy’s cheese, whatever that was. I wanted cheese in my bread, but I have plain bread with no cheese. I took another bite and forced a swallow.

There was supposed to be cheese in this.

Then I heard, “Don’t cry, baby. Don’t do it, I know you want to,” from the lady who hated me and my desire for cheese.

“I’m not going to,” I muttered. But that pain began in my throat. My vision blurred from tears forming. I grabbed my bread off the table and stood up as they began to fall.

“There was supposed to be cheese in this, for Christ’s sake! I don’t know if I even believe in Christ, but for his sake, I meant to say cheese bread instead of plain bread, and I mixed up my words. It’s called ordering anxiety! Okay? I just wanted the cheese bread. There was supposed to be cheese in this. I’m sorry. I’m a baby. I’ll eat it. It’s just cheese!”

I took a big bite, which coated my mouth with flour. I wiped it away with my hand. Then a tear fell from my eye, so I wiped that away, but I got flour in my eye. I left the bakery and walked out into the pouring rain. I left my coat inside, but I couldn’t go back now.