The block of cheddar cheese had been moved so that it was positioned exactly two inches below the refrigerator light.  Herb saw it when he opened the fridge door, how the light danced off of the pale yellow of the cheese, and he thought nothing off it.  How could he have known that the jar of pickles obscured by the bottles of beer in front of them had been pushed back until it pressed firmly against the sensor that controlled the light, resulting in the light staying on even when the door was shut.

Herb was no scientist. He was an accountant, good with numbers but he struggled with anything that didn’t have credits and debits. It was the pure perfection of the system, that everything had to balance out, that appealed to him. He had no knowledge of the effects cold air had on the ionization properties of light and on the half-life of a block of cheddar cheese that absorbed these rays of gamma radiation.

To put it succinctly, Herb had no idea that there, in his refrigerator, the transformation of the mass of a block of cheddar cheese was complete.  There, in Herb’s refrigerator, nuclear cheese had sprung to life.

The cheese didn’t have to wait long for its opportunity. Herb opened the door and leaned in, looking for a jar of Miracle Whip, when the cheese saw it’s opening and pounced, leaping and springing from the refrigerator shelf at Herb’s face with his pointy end first, striking Herb in the nose. Herb screamed as blood erupted from his face (the cheese was after all a sharp cheddar).  Before Herb could gather his wits and figure out what had just happened, the nuclear cheese was past him and out the door into the street.

To Ron Sirloin, driver of an eighteen wheeler semi-truck, the block of cheese looked like a lifeless yellow triangle laying in the left lane of the freeway.  There was too much traffic for him to swerve and avoid it, so he tried to run it over.  Next thing he knew he was airborne, his truck having been lifted and sent flying backwards through the air, landing across the freeway and causing a chain reaction crash of fifty seven cars.

Herb chased after the cheese, horrified by the carnage it already was responsible for.  The cheese continued on, with Herb in pursuit, until it came to the doors of WGUM, the local radio station.  Herb could only watch helplessly as the cheese ripped open the door and grabbed the host of the midday conservative talk show, Charlie Psycho.  An orange beam emanated from the cheese and instantly vaporized Psycho.  The cheese took the microphone and broadcast to the city.  “I am the Nuclear Cheese,” it intoned, “and you are all my pathetic little subjects. You shall do as I say or else!”

Herb knew what he had to do.  He ran back home, and from the fridge he grabbed a leftover bratwurst.  He found the cheese, still broadcasting from the radio station, talking about a flat tax and complaining about welfare cheaters.  Herb found him and introduced him to the bratwurst. The cheese was instantly smitten, and the two of them fell into a deep love. They were married that afternoon, with the vows of “For Cheddar or Wurst.”

Herb’s instincts proved correct.  The only thing that could balance the Nuclear Cheese, the one credit to its debit, was the love of a good sausage.  Herb moved the jar of pickles so that his fridge light operated correctly, and an unparalleled period of peace and joy spread over the land.