Baby Cheese, Anyone?

I am like my mother in many ways. One of those ways is that when we are at a high stress level and attempting to remember everything in order and all the other billion things that need to be done it is hard to maintain one coherent thought. Thankfully, however, I haven't quite hit the point yet where I am making such odd requests as this one:

My mom and I are at the Wal-Mart deli picking up some sandwich meat and cheese for yummy consumption later. Browsing through the lumps and chunks of cheeses varying in color from albino white to sunset orange, she suddenly blurts "They hardly have any cheese!" I look at the display in confusion- since there is enough cheese there that I have yet to even make out one particular name.

"What?"

"I'm looking for baby swiss," she says. I have never heard of baby swiss cheese in my entire life, and this confuses me, so I ask her for clarification. Apparently baby swiss is a little less pungent and strong as regular swiss cheese, so indeed it's taste is a little weaker and, oh, let's say infantile. Hey, learn something new everyday!

Meanwhile a young man with dark curly hair coming out of the white lunch-lady hat comes up to the display and asks politely what we would like. My mom is still intently scouring the cheeses for any sign of baby swiss.

"Yes, can I have some baby cheese?"

(For my sake, please pause just a moment and read that sentence again.)

I look at her quickly and begin to giggle, while at the same time panicking slightly and wondering how in the world we can recover from this small blunder. With wide eyes, I look across the glassy dome of cheese and see the man who had, up until this moment, been slicing a hunk of meat pause mid-slice and repeatedly blink at us.

"ahem. you mean baby swiss." I mumble/cough to my mother, trying desperately to recover for us both. My mother looked up at the guy helping us with her mouth open in a did-i-really-say-that? expression. But she was smiling, and then she laughed. This gave me permission to burst out in laughter loud enough for most of the people in the surrounding aisles to glance curiously in the direction of the deli counter.

"Yes I mean baby swiss," my mom chuckled, turning slightly pink but bravely acknowledging her slip.

By the time I finished my guffaw and had turned my eye to the deli again, the young man helping us had taken the baby swiss out of the display case and was cradling it gently in the crook of his arm. "Is this what you had in mind?" he asked.