Funny Boy Takes on the Chit-Chatting Cheeses from Chattanooga by Dan Gutman Page A

clichés,” I admitted. “You know, Monterey, this Tupperware you’re in is microwavable. ...
    “No!” the cheeses shrieked.
    “Forget about microwaves,” Tupper suggested. “I disabled the joke deflector. Why don’t you just tell some of those funny jokes of yours?”
    “You really think my jokes are funny, Tupper?”
    “Hysterical!” Tupper exclaimed. “Won’t you tell those cheeses some jokes and save the world ... for me?”
    “I’d rather be microwaved,” Mozzarella moaned.
    “For you, Tupper, anything. Okay you cheeses, how much did the pirate pay to get his ears pierced?”
    “How much?”
    “A buck an ear. Get it? A buccaneer?”
    “Please stop!” Romano groaned. “It’s bad enough that we have been confined in these Tupperware containers. Must we also listen to your pathetic attempts at humor?”
    “Yes! Why couldn’t they play cards on Noah’s ark?”
    “Why?”
    “Because Noah sat on the deck.”
    “No more jokes. Please!” shouted Fontina. “The pain! The pain!”
    “What’s yellow and green and eats grass?” I asked.
    “What?”
    “A yellow-and-green grass eater. What’s yellow and blue and eats grass?”

    “A yellow-and-blue grass eater?” Mozzarella guessed.
    “No,” I informed him. “They only come in yellow and green.”
    “Stop the torture!” Romano begged. “Have you no sense of decency! In heaven’s name, please stop this torture!”
    “My sense of humor is beginning to grate on you, isn’t it?” I sneered. “Get it? Grate on you?”
    “Not puns!” Mozzarella screamed. “I’m begging you. Anything but puns!”
    “Do you know where the first doughnut was made?”
    “Where?”
    “In Greece.”
    That was it. Suddenly, all four cheeses began to shrivel up. Their faces disappeared into themselves, leaving a big gloppy mess. All was quiet. I went over to Monterey Jack to see if he was still breathing.
    “He’s dead,” I told the others. “Dead as a doornail.”
    We had a brief moment of silence to think about what had happened, and what could have happened if Tupper Camembert had not come along and rescued us.
    “Well,” Bob Foster finally said. “That’s the way the cookie crumbles.”
    “The bigger they come, the harder they fall,” Punch grinned.

    “You live and learn,” added Tupper.
    “Some folks just can’t take a joke,” I concluded. “Okay, enough clichés.” I wrapped my cheesy arms around Tupper Camembert and gave her a big hug.
    “My hero!” She swooned.

    Once again the forces of funniness had thwarted evil. I not only saved the world and conquered the forces of evil but I even got the girl. I was like the James Bond of kids!
    Once again, I had made the world safe. Safe for mint-flavored dental floss and supermodels. Safe for inflatable furniture and battery-operated candy dispensers. Safe for the windchill factor and for movies based on thirty-year-old TV sitcoms that weren’t even good thirty years ago.

    That concludes this adventure. Until we meet again, my friends, let me leave you with two small pieces of wisdom. First, always remember that you are unique, just like everyone else. Second, if at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is definitely not for you.

A Biography of Dan Gutman
    Dan Gutman was born in a log cabin in Illinois and used to write by candlelight with a piece of chalk on a shovel. Oh, wait a minute, that was Abraham Lincoln. Actually, Dan Gutman grew up in New Jersey and, for some reason, still lives there.
    Somehow, Dan survived his bland and uneventful childhood, and then attended Rutgers University, where he majored in psychology for reasons he can’t explain. After a few years of graduate studies, he disappointed his mother by moving to New York City to become a starving writer.
    In the 1980s, after several penniless years writing untrue newspaper articles, unread magazine articles, and unsold screenplays, Gutman supported himself by writing about video games and selling unnecessary body parts.