The cosmic cheese-slicer

My friend Dave asks me about my favorite household management tips. I’m not so sure about household management, but I’ll readily talk about my favorite kitchen implement: our cheese-slicer with nine lives. It first got into our possession when Diane in 1995 decided that the kitchen in her dorm at Stockholm University needed it far less than we did. She was right. We had love, hope and cheese, but we had no cheese slicer. Let’s say that it was a crime of passion. The cheese-slicer has been with us ever since (and so have love and hope).

Yes, it has nine lives. We always seem to lose or misplace it, but it always magically comes back to us. Once in London my mother — on a temporary visit and a mission to move us out of student bohemia — threw it away. But the garbage bag broke and we found it on the street and rescued it. Another time we mistakenly chucked it out together with some carrot peels. It was buried in our compost heap until, one spring, a child’s search for worms suddenly unearthed it. We cleaned it thoroughly and return it to its place in the kitchen drawer.

The most remarkable occasion was when we went on a camping trip to Italy. We had just picked up all our bags at the airport in Rome when I cast a quick glance behind my shoulder. A metal object with a wooden handle had fallen out of someone’s bag and was making the rounds on the baggage carousel — it was our cheese-slicer. Ciao! Benvenuto a Roma!

After such on-the-brink rescues we naturally had to bring it with us to Taiwan.

Sometimes I wonder whether the cheese-slicer is trying to tell us something. Why else would it be so insistently loyal? Maybe it’s been sent from another planet with a secret message? Maybe this is the cosmic cheese-slicer which will appear at the end of all time to warn mankind regarding the impending doom? While we are waiting for further clarifications, we simply use it for slicing cheese.