A slice off the poor old Y thing

The Cheese Machine has left the building. I don't mean Elvis in his cheddar-soaked Vegas swansong.

No, this was a real Cheese Machine – a plastic box that looked like a possum trap designed by Philippe Starck.

It wasn't. "Famous Inventor David Holcomb" is pictured on the packaging. The Cheese Machine is one of those devices that exist only in Infomercial Land. It was probably a giveaway with an overpriced "Abs-Solution", the only abs machine you will ever need until next month. (The staff down at the Nelson Recycling Centre all have chiselled washboard abs from carting around discarded abs machines.)

The buyer flicked the Cheese Machine on. When I approached the prize table at a fundraising bash last year, the choice was down to the Machine or a Celine Dion Christmas CD. Tough call.

"Save your money on presliced cheese with this slice of heaven," it promises. You load an enormous block in and turn a wheel that drives a conveyor belt taking the Edam to its doom – a gate and a slicing blade. The device comes with two pages of instructions for operating – "Turn the wheel counterclockwise until the cheese is exposed and Track is retracted so that the cheese can pass through the opening" – and cleaning – "Allow the Machine, the Pusher Block and the Track to soak in warm soapy water for 5 min, then scrub clean". If you still don't get it, there are 24 illustrations.

So, it was a case of goodbye yellow brick load, big wheel keep on turning and after much delightful faffing about and humming of old pop songs, I produced my first slice of heaven. Masculine heaven. My poor excuse for a Y chromosome still buzzes at the sight of the word "machine". Couple it with "cheese" and you have kitchen bliss – if that's not an oxymoron.

However, the course of true lust never did run smooth. I was outvoted on the domestic front and we reverted to that neolithic device, the knife, which did the job in seconds devoid of all fun. The Cheese Machine went into a cupboard and, just recently, was spirited away to a fundraising garage sale. By me, I might add.

Fickle devotions aside, I belatedly realise the Cheese Machine was a metaphor for all complicated devices built to perform a simple task. Cars are full of Cheese Machines, from satnav to electric windows. Gyms are full of Cheese Machines to simulate the bike ride you didn't take and the stairs you didn't climb to get to the gym.

You could call it a man thing, but I'm reluctant to delve into the male psyche again because "balance" dictates a look at the other side, and honestly, it's no-go territory. However, an email has arrived from a reader. She wrote that her husband, a doctor, juggles "the most enormous amounts of fine details involving people's lives, but couldn't begin to tell you a red T-shirt doesn't go with green shorts".

Wife says she was going into hospital for three days, so hubby begged her to write a survival guide for managing the house and their nine-year-old twin daughters. Oh blast, I've probably just outed the poor man. What the hell. His beloved Bernie felt her guide could be useful to the wider male public:

"Selection of clothes for girls laid out in spare bedroom. One row for each child. Don't let them wear short shorts with a long top, for obvious reasons. If there's anything they really want to wear that's not in the piles, that's OK provided they're not filthy, torn or downright unsuitable. Or cunningly reclaimed from the box for the Salvation Army.

"Doesn't matter if you can't do a French plait with one hand at 8.30am, while feeding the cats with the other.

"They can go to school with hair like Bob Geldof if necessary: they won't mind, nor will anyone else and I won't get to see it.

"How to check their worn clothes for re-usability: Hold up to good light. Check for sneaky grass stains; food blobs masquerading as the same colour as T-shirt; grey and paint-blobbed cuffs (yes, you know, the things at the bottom of their arms). If in doubt, lob in washing basket. Don't let it overflow.

"School back-packs. A tricky area requiring courage. Check each afternoon (rubber gloves optional) for mouldy sausages; liquefied banana and mummified apple cores; other prehistoric remnants of lunch (probably someone else's) in screwed-up bags, which have all suddenly appeared from nowhere. Plus, school messages (urgent) that appear to have gone through the shredder, requiring money to be sent in a week ago.

"School lunchboxes. Oh you KNOW what goes in them. You're just being a man."

Ouch, Bernie. Stereotypical and unfair. Furthermore, sure, the green shorts would be a travesty, but is a green skirt still OK?

- © Fairfax NZ News

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