A Spaghetti Dinner

I made spaghetti a few nights ago. I even went the extra mile and grated some fresh cheese to put on top. I was eating it while watching one of the chess.com TV broadcasts. I always feel really great at chess right after watching a video. I usually want to jump into a few games on live chess afterwards. I ended up playing just one game and barely winning. Having clearly proven my chess ability to the video, I was off to do the dishes.

I live in an apartment by myself and do not generate too many dishes. I found it easier and faster to just wash them by hand rather than use the dish washer. Everything was going fine until I came to a rather problematic piece of kitchenware. I speak, of course, of the mighty cheese grater. I own a somewhat full-featured cheese grater. It has four sides with different size holes and a handle at the top. The inside is hollow and the cheese falls through the center when grated. It was also brand new and quite sharp.

No amount of chess could have fully prepared me for the tactical nightmare of hand washing this cheese grater. I opted for a standard "sharp object" opening and proceeded to see how much I could simply rinse off. The grater countered by responding with a "stuck" opening, cheese variation. I then tried to develop my sponge. Several seconds later, my sponge was already in trouble. At this point I decided to sacrifice it in an attempt to gain mobility in the hollow center. This succeeded in gaining control of the center, but I was now down a whole cleaning piece. Re-evaluating the position, I realized it had a weakness in its defensive structure. I started applying constant pressure to the edges. It was allowing me to slowly weaken its position. This continued until the first time control when I had to put my laundry into the drier.

The endgame was in sight. Only a few small pockets of cheese defenders remained. I methodically attacked them with precise brushes. The grater was not about to relent, and it produced a devastating cut to the finger by moving into the open pinky file. Both of us now exhausted, we fought on for several more minutes struggling for any conceivable advantage. I was the first to speak out. Draw? I asked. The grater accepted.