This Is a Thing?

Story Sent in by Austin:

In the hobbies section of Emme's profile she had listed "cheese folding." I had never heard of such a thing and I asked her about it in my second message to her.

She replied that it was the act of taking a slice of cheese and folding it over and over until you couldn't fold it anymore. Then you'd unfold it and repeat the process.

"Doesn't that break the cheese?" I asked.

She replied, "That's the point. There's a technique so that you don't break it."

Sounded really fascinating. I moved on to other topics.

We ended up on a first date at a little local cafe. She brought a small stack of yellow cheddar slices with her. She said, "I'm gonna teach you how to fold cheese. It'll be fun."

Predictably, I ripped every slice I folded. For that matter, so did she. But she grew more and more upset at my lack of ability. She'd say, "That's not right! You have the technique all wrong! Watch me," and then she'd fold her cheese and promptly tear it in half during the fold.

"You're tearing your own cheese. I just don't think cheese is meant to be foldable."

"It is. I've done it before. But some cheese is easier than others. And I just folded like 30 slices of it this afternoon. It was a little cold in my car so maybe that's why it's so brittle."

I stopped folding cheese. "Well it was fun. So tell me about the poetry you write."

"I'd rather just fold a slice so you can see me do it. It is possible."

She went through the rest of the cheese and couldn't fold any of it without it splitting, tearing, or what-have-you. She became frustrated and then gobbled up all the cheese, even the slices I had attempted to fold, myself.

We had an unexpectedly normal conversation for the rest of the date, but I could tell she was really upset about the cheese issue. I didn't ask her out again.