The Cheese Chronicles

One sad day, Cheese is going to get off probation. I may be hard up for material at that point. Sometimes Cheese believes his own hype, and sometimes he thinks he's worthless. Just when you think you've figured him out, he surprises the hell out of you.

Cheese was going to quit the Sonic a couple of months ago. You may remember the story? He ended up staying because his new job was only for 3 or 4 hours a week. I don't know why restaurant managers think its even worth doing the paperwork to hire someone for such a pitiable amount of time, but it happens. Cheese kept both jobs stringing along, but he's gotten tired of it.

Cheese has a younger brother. His name is Cheeto, remember? Cheeto got a job at a used car lot. Its a shark pit. Cheeto started out washing cars. Now he's a salesman. Sort of.

He's been bugging Cheese to come down and buy a car from him. Everyday he comes home from work in a different car that he wants Cheese to look at and buy. Every day Cheese makes Cheeto show him the car, tell him the features, drive him around and negotiate financing. Every day Cheese tells him "Hell, no, fool! I ain't buyin' yo car."

Cheeto keeps trying.

Last week their mother's van broke down. Their dad has a car to get back and forth to work, but mom's got no wheels - she's afoot. Cheeto dragged her down to the car lot to look at their selection. He showed her several cars and made lots of promises. In the end she shook her head and said, "No, Cheeto. I'm not buying your car."

Cheese finally asked Cheeto "How many cars have you sold, fool?"

"What, this month?"

"This month or ever, fool!"

"Well, none," Cheeto admitted. But he had plans. He had cars. He was going to make it big at any moment.

Cheese started hanging out at the car lot, watching his brother. He gave Cheeto tips on how to talk to people. "Don't talk with your hands so much - people don't trust you when you wave your hands like that." "Don't start pushing cars at people the minute they get here. Let them walk around, see what you have before you start selling." "And shut the f*** up! You never stop talking - give people some room, fool!"

Cheeto still wasn't getting it. After all, he'd failed to sell a car to his own pedestrianized mother.

One day when Cheese stopped by the car lot, Cheeto came running to him for help. He had a customer who needed a car badly and she'd just gotten her tax refund. She was ready to buy. Cheeto was ready to screw it up. Cheese said he would make the sale, but he wasn't doing it for free. They quickly agreed that Cheese would get 10% of the commission. Cheese feed him the lines, a la Cyrano de Bergerac, and Cheeto made the sale. Cheeto was ecstatic. Cheese made some cash. He told Cheeto that each time he helped him, his commission would increase by 10%.

A couple of days later, Cheeto called Cheese at home. "Come meet me at work," he said. When Cheese got there he learned that Cheeto's boss told him to go repossess a car. He had no idea what to do or how to do it, but he knew he could call Cheese. Cheese told him "Get in the car, fool. We're going to Auto Zone."

To be continued...