The Grilled Cheese Tragedy

by Grace LaPierre

It was Friday, the sixth of December 2019 at approximately one o’clock in the afternoon. After slaving away for two hours, during the only two classes I had that day, in hopes of acquiring the glittering beacon of success known as a college degree, I felt something strange. A deep rumbling that shook the world… an earthquake, perhaps? Alas, it was not an earthquake but the unbridled rage of the stomach I had neglected to feed. Hoping to keep the demons at bay, I swiftly made my way from Smith Center to the dining hall in Southside. Pushing the door open, I stepped inside and my eyes settled on the grill. The grill, pinnacle of food preparation, used in creating the masterpiece that is a grilled cheese. The line, not too long, swallowed me up as I selected a purple ticket and filled it out– I would soon possess a grilled cheese sandwich.

I cannot tell what is more tragic; the fact that I had never eaten a grilled cheese, with the crisp golden bread and the soft, gooey cheese until my freshman year of college or that time when I was ten and my mother threw my ice cream cone out the window because I was being a brat. Years of being deprived of the grilled cheese’s glory resulted in it becoming something of a holy item to me. So unhealthy yet so delicious, the grilled cheese has always come up when considering America’s most beloved foods, and I, a failure of an American, had taken over 18 years to consume one. I filled out that purple ticket with great excitement, watching intently as it left my hands and the sorcery began.

Many others were present in the dining hall, patiently waiting for their own cherished meal, oblivious to my excitement. At the grill alone, there were several people. I knew three among them: the girl unfortunate enough to be applying for an apartment with me come spring, one of my roommates from my summer study abroad experience, and the young man who lives at the opposite end of the hall from me now– they soon would bear witness to my greatest shame. I was to become a public spectacle. A woman called my name, setting the grilled cheese down so that I could abscond with it. My hands grasped the plate and I turned to leave.

It was then that tragedy struck.

Surrounded by the other students, I could only watch in horror as my golden glory of a sandwich valiantly wrestled with gravity. It slid, like water off a duck’s back, from the plate. Slicing through air, one half hit the counter’s edge and bounced, tumbling to the floor. The other half remained precariously perched upon the counter, daring to taunt gravity further. It haunts me, replaying in slow motion inside my head, for the sandwich had become acquainted with the floor in a matter of seconds. I had been powerless to stop it. Frozen in horror and humiliation, I struggled to process the scene. I could not believe the tragedy that had befallen me. And then I heard it. A man’s voice. He spoke the words of revival.

“Five-second rule.”

It was a soft-spoken comment from behind me, accompanied by a chuckle. The piteous scene continued, however, as I dropped to the floor and scooped up the corpse of my treasured grilled cheese. My beautiful, delicious grilled cheese… tainted by the floor, I had barely recovered it in time. Placing it back upon its throne, that mustard yellow plate I still held firmly within my grasp, I fled with what little of my dignity remained. I took my tragic sando, nestled myself in a quiet corner… out of sight, out of mind… and devoured it like the hangry beast I had become. It did not taste like a grilled cheese that touched the floor. It was as much a delight as if it had been Grilled Cheesus in the flesh. And while there was great shame, there was no fear– if my precious floor grilled cheese were to kill me, at the very least I would no longer need to bear the burden of student debt.