I worked early on Tuesday, and we were pretty busy because the store had been closed on Monday. The day went by very quickly, and before I knew it I was at home packing. I slept very little, as is often the case when we are about to leave town, due to needless worrying coupled with giddy enthusiasm.

I woke up very early, packed the car, and went to work to meet up with my co-workers before heading South to White River Junction for a day of cheese class. The class was offered by our state's Cheese Council, in cooperation with a local University. It was lead by a woman from Spain, whose accent, I gathered, was difficult for the other seven people from my store, and nearly impossible for the cheesemakers who made up the rest of our class to decipher.
We were given a plate with two samples on it and a small slice of apple. We were shown notes on an overhead projector. We took almost two hours discussing these things. (This was the first time that this class had been offered outside the University, where it is taught over a six week period.) We took a break at this point, and I assumed that there were going to be two or possibly four more samples after lunch.
There wasn't any lunch, nor was there time for one. We broke for ten minutes, during which I mostly waited in line for the bathroom and then attempted to meet a couple of the cheese makers. I overheard a couple of them complaining about the smell of the first two samples (a French Camembert and an Epoisses, which bore little resemblance to the cheddars and mild cheeses that most of these people grew up on and produce). This was clearly not what anyone expected.
Two more samples were handed around when class resumed, as well as small paper cups half-full of water. Again there were notes. Feeling my carpel tunnel start to kick in, I wondered why on earth they hadn't thought to print these things out in advance. We tasted, we discussed, and we disagreed. The cheesemaker at our table couldn't believe that anybody would eat any of this stuff on purpose. We finished the fourth sample and I was imagining what I might do while I waited for the b.h. to arrive (he was taking a bus down to meet me). And then the rest of the samples came out. They kept coming. We were handed sheets on which we were to make notes. The rest of the cheeses were made locally by the people in the class. We were not told what the cheeses were, but each one was given a number and we were expected to make notes about them, based on what we had learned in class, which would then be given to the person who made the cheese. When this portion of the class started, we had already eaten two ounces each of FOUR cheeses. It was not pretty.
"Well, at least we won't have to make any bathroom stops on the way home," joked my boss, Barbara.
Basically we suffered through as much as we could of the rest of the cheeses, but most people stopped even pretending that they cared. The class ran an hour longer than it was scheduled to, and I ran out the door at the end to pick up the b.h., who had by then spent an hour at the bus station. I learned a lot in that class, but the most important lesson I learned while driving to New York City feeling like I might throw up at any moment, and it is this: Never, under any circumstances, eat more than half a pound of cheese in one sitting.