Cheese?
My husband dug this out of his work email when I thought I had lost it forever. I wrote it two jobs ago, in response to an acute attack of bitterness and frustration.
Lawyer alert: This is a parody. PAR-O-DEE. Such things are legally protected. Really. No foolin’. Look it up.
After some time at Cheese Station N, Snort noticed that the cheese supply once again began to diminish. He told Scuttle and Mumble what he had discovered, and they agreed to go searching for New Cheese together. They tied on their running shoes and blithely set off.
Their first day of search was rather discouraging, as first days often are, so they turned back toward Cheese Station N to fortify themselves for another sally. On their way back, they came upon something strange: the floor of the maze stopped, and a giant wheel, built of bars whose ends were welded to two great circles, towered above them.
Scuttle, smallest and most nimble of the three, squeezed past one of the circles into the wheel, and began to run toward the other side. As he ran the wheel began to turn. He looked down through the bars of the wheel, and saw a great many gears and other sorts of machinery underneath, which the wheel’s motion also set in motion.
“Why, look!” called Mumble suddenly, pointing down a side passage on their side of the wheel. “Cheese!”
And so it was. A small portal in the maze wall opened, and bits of Cheese came out of it and landed on the floor, all ready for eating. Scuttle stopped on the wheel to see the sight—and the Cheese stopped appearing.
“Scuttle, keep moving the wheel!” cried Snort excitedly. And Scuttle did so. As the wheel turned, more Cheese appeared from the portal in the wall. Snort and Mumble ate their fill, and encouraged Scuttle to keep running, occasionally passing him in bits of Cheese.
Scuttle grew tired after a while, but Snort and Mumble told him how grateful they were for his help, and how wonderful it was that his efforts produced so much Cheese, and being a good-natured soul as mice go, Scuttle kept running.
Eventually, ahead of him, beyond the wheel, Scuttle dimly began to perceive a hint of orange in the darkness of the maze. He peered and peered as he ran and ran, until at last the dim shape came clear: a new Cheese Station, greater and more glorious than even Cheese Station N! Between gasps for breath—for he was running very swiftly now—Scuttle told Snort and Mumble what he could see, since they were in the side passage collecting Cheese from the portal and could not see it for themselves.
“Well, that’s very fine, Scuttle,” said Mumble, “and it’s terrific that you found it, and we’re very proud of you, but before we all go to the new station, we need you to run faster so that we have enough Cheese from this portal to be strong enough to get there.”
In vain did poor Scuttle protest that the new station was only a short way away, and if they would only let him stop running, he could lead them to it in a trice. In vain did poor Scuttle plead and beg to be allowed to recommence the search. At last, poor Scuttle felt his heart breaking within him, and in agony he cried out to Snort and Mumble, “Please! I must stop running, or I will die! Just let me stop running, and I will take you to the New Cheese!”
Snort felt sorry for his friend, and turned to Mumble to plead on his behalf. But Mumble was inexorable. “We must have the Cheese. Scuttle, keep running!”
But Scuttle could run no more, for exhaustion and lack of Cheese. His little paws ceased their wild bursts of motion. The momentum of the great wheel dashed him backwards against the bars, and before the horrified eyes of Snort and Mumble, Scuttle slid insensible between the bars of the wheel and was torn to pieces in the machinery below, which ground to a halt.
“Oh, dear,” said Mumble. “What a shame. How sorry I am to see Scuttle go. But Scuttle’s contributions were very valuable, and will long be remembered and appreciated. Let us go on and make more Cheese, in Scuttle’s memory.” So he stepped onto the wheel. Unfortunately, the mangled remains of poor Scuttle had clogged the wheel’s machinery such that no matter how hard he tried, Mumble could not make the wheel turn.
Snort watched in deep sorrow for his lost friend. With tears in his eyes, he turned to the wall above the now-empty portal, lifted his mouse paw, and began to scratch on the wall with it:
No One Can Find Cheese
without Opportunity, Energy, and Authority
to Search For It.
Mumble left the motionless wheel, and read Snort’s mouse-track letters in silence. He stepped forward and wrote:
Depending on One Person
to Find Cheese
is Extremely Dangerous.