The other day I went to the grocery store and picked up one of my favorite foods in the world, Laughing Cow Creamy French Swiss Cheese. It comes in a little round container with individually wrapped cheeses inside, and it's highly spreadable on crackers. I really get into food that you can spread on a cracker - there's just something about that crunch that really works for me.

But, I digress.

The other part of this story is that, when I was in high school, I took....

a class in which we learned to speed read. I already read very quickly anyway, so I was sort of a natural at it. One of the key points in speed reading is not to read every word ( though my mother feels that this is a type of disrespect. After all, she points out, the writer took all the time to write every word) To get the gist or overview of what the material is about you should look for certain keywords, then read more deeply. Because this is something I learned to do, and because there is so much written junk floating around in the world, I "speed read" all the time.

But, dangers lurk.

For instance, when I got home, took out my Triscuits and hungrily broke the seal around the Laughing Cow cheese. I peeked at book I'm reading ( another Anne Rule book. Heart Full of Lies Nothing spices up your dinner like the story of a psychopathic killer!!!) lifted my knife in one hand and took the lid off.

Inside, there was a little card. This is what I thought it said:

Sorry, This is not
Please Try Again
Laughing Cow Cheese

What do you mean it's not Laughing Cow Cheese? What the hell I am about to put on my cracker? Plumbers putty? I asked myself, somewhat paniced.

Looking more closely at the card I realized it said:

Sorry, This is not a
winning game piece
Please try again and thank you for buying
The Laughing Cow Cheeses.

I didn't buy it for the contest. I'd bought it for the cheese, which, thankfully was wrapped in it's little triangles and just as good and spreadable as ever.

Whew!