The egg is known as nature’s perfect food, and I do love eggs, but I lean toward cheese as having the top spot or at least sharing it. Cheese is terrific all by itself or paired with fruit or crackers or as an ingredient in a recipe or melted over tortilla chips. It’s just an all-round good food. Similarly the word "cheese" is a great word all by itself (doesn’t it feel good just to say it?) or as part of an expression. Expressions which include the word "cheese" are many and varied (and almost all funny). For instance, you say, "Cheese it–the cops!" when you want someone to stop doing something in front of someone else who is arriving; "Cheese it" when you want someone to shut up; "the big cheese" when referring to the head honcho; "The moon is made of green cheese" when you’re indulging in nonsense; "cut the cheese" when referring to flatulance; "cheesey" when describing something overblown and inauthentic; one of my faves, "How can you govern a country where there are 246 kinds of cheese?" attributed to Charles de Gaulle; and, of course, the one we all learn as babies, "Say ‘Cheese’," when you’re about to be photographed. Cheese has even been used in titles to sell books and movies: "Who Moved My Cheese?," "I Am the Cheese," "I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With." And, of course, there are the ubiquitous restaurant chains which capitalize on the attraction of cheese, "The Cheesecake Factory," "Chuck E. Cheese," and "Cheddars" (yeah, I know, that last one is cheating a bit, but not much).
In other words, the very word "cheese" carries with it some power. So it is no wonder that cheese can even become an object of fear. You might think I’m taking the power associated with cheese a bit too far with that, but seriously, cheese has been feared by one member of our household. I’m not talking about fear of the fat, calories or cholesterol it contains. I’m talking about Figaro thinking, "Oh, no, it’s cheese. What’s going to happen? What’s it going to do to me?? What can I do to save myself??? RUN!!!!!"
It all started several years ago when the vet taught me how to give pills to my dogs. I used to buy hot dogs, cut them into ½ inch slices, and cut a little nick on one of the flat sides in which to hide the pill. That worked fine until Maddie figured out what we were doing and started to somehow eat around the pill. She’d eat the hot dog and spit the now-pink soggy pill on the floor or we would find it hanging in the hair around her mouth. Then one of the other dogs would think it was something to lick up, either off the floor or off her, and the wrong dog would get the pill.
So the vet told me about using snack cheese. You know, the processed cheese food that comes in a tall narrow metal can with a skinny nozzle on top which you push against with your finger and out comes a stream of cheese? I call it squirt cheese. Wonderful invention for giving dogs pills. You just put the pill on the tip of your forefinger and squirt the cheese onto it covering it all over. Then you hand the cheese ball to the dog and he eats it thinking it’s a wonderful treat. But when you have three dogs, you can’t just treat the one, you have to give some to all three. So to the ones who don’t need a pill, I started just sticking the nozzle down near them and they’d immediately put their tongue, teeth, and lips all over it. I’d squirt the cheese right into their mouths. Great fun, until ....
One day I squirted the cheese can for Figaro and it ran out of cheese in mid-squirt. You wouldn’t think that would be much of a problem, unless you’ve ever had it happen to you. When that happens it doesn’t just stop. It sputters and pops. Loudly and wetly. And yes, you guessed it, it sputtered right in Figaro’s mouth, scaring the dickens out of him. He ran away from me and wouldn’t come back as long as I held the cheese can. After that every time I got the cheese can out and put it down near him so he could get a squirt, he ran the other way. So I took pity on him and stopped offering it as a treat. He’d watch from afar as the other two indulged.
But I still need the cheese to give him his periodically prescribed pills. Recently, after his teeth cleaning, Figaro needed 10 days of antibiotics, a pill twice a day. When I offered him the wad of cheese with the pill hidden in it and held it down for him to lick off my finger, he backed away. I didn’t even have the scary cheese can in my hand. He wanted nothing to do with me holding a wad of cheese on my finger toward him. I had to drop the cheese wad on the floor. After a moment of watching to see if the yellow mass did anything, he tiptoed tentatively toward it and when he was convinced it was safe, he ate it. Over the next ten days, he finally came to trust that my finger wasn’t going to explode into sputters and toward the end of the prescription he deemed my cheese-covered fingertip trustworthy and would eat the cheese right off the finger. He had overcome his fear of cheese-on-a-finger. Since then he allowed me to put the cheese can near him for a moment while he was lying on the couch. Once he even licked the nozzle.
What’s the lesson in all this? That fear is a powerful thing? That there is nothing to fear but fear itself? I don’t think so. I think there is something else going on here. So out of curiosity, I googled the phrase "fear of cheese" and found out that the fear of cheese is an actual psychiatric condition: turophobia. (Stop laughing. This is serious. Think of all those turophobics who can’t enjoy pizza, another staple in life.) I think the lesson here is that with patience and understanding and the right therapist, turophobia can be overcome. Although Figaro still has some work to do on his condition, I think he might have a future as the poster child for turophobia. After all, he didn’t even know he was diagnosable and look what he accomplished almost all by himself. He ate cheese!
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