January 14th, 2026

An Inside Job

Walking in a large commercial parking lot, I see a food truck pull up to the curb with the words “Gangster Cheese” painted on the side.  As the staff set up shop, preparing for the soon-to-arrive lunch crowd, I find myself wondering what “gangster cheese” might be.  Some type of cheese with a lot of street cred?  But the truck is painted black.  The logo is shadowy figures dressed in trench coats with fedoras tipped below their brows—intimidating, old-time gangster images, not hip-hop stars and rappers. An employee sets up a sign that contains the menu: grilled cheese sandwiches.

This doesn’t add up.  To bring order to my mind, I want to stop and tell these cheese gangsters to change the name because I am pretty sure that a buttery grilled cheese sandwich is not the food of evil forces; it’s what’s for lunch in heaven.  Before penicillin, it cured a lot of sick kids and made life worth living.  But even in my state of mental confusion, I still have enough judgment to realize that asking a gangster of any kind to change their name would be a gamble, and it might end with me buried in concrete. 

I sleep on it.  My rested mind remembers that before cheese kills you, it makes you an addict, clogging your arteries and sealing off your colon.  Aha! These cheese gangsters don’t cut your heart out, they wait for it to explode.  What a scheme! They take your money and let you die a slow death even as they keep you coming back for more. It’s the perfect crime--all the evidence is digested and flushed down the toilet. I guess of all the ways to die, death by buttery grilled cheese sandwiches is not so bad.  It’s better than having your bones broken one-by-one.

I decide to go undercover before drawing any final conclusions.  I infiltrate some local cartels of cafeteria ladies and stay-at-home moms.  In the process, I learn that this is a big operation that goes all the way to the top.  It’s a syndicate too big for this little gumshoe, and so I wind up my investigation.  The findings?   A buttery grilled cheese sandwich is the original ecstasy, a recipe the gods intended for heaven.  With the size of their operation and their many channels of distribution, I conclude that these cunning, cheese-trafficking gangsters must have someone on the inside!