“Take that bloody cheese off already,” my dad would bark at me. Oh how I should have listened.
It all started one spring weeknight in 2020. I had just caught a film with friends. I was in my metallic blue Mazda 2 parked in front of the Randwick Ritz cinema, about to pull out, when a red P-plated hatchback full of mulleted, rowdy youths pulled up beside me.
With their windows down, music blaring and vapes puffing, a teenager in the passenger seat produced what I would later learn was a cheese single – the plasticky American kind – and frisbeed it toward my car, landing on my hood. It appeared they were filming it as a TikTok prank, so I didn’t react. They sped off.
I didn’t want to peel the cheese off my car. Some part of me felt like it was letting the hoodlums win. Plus, this was just as Sydney was going into its first La Niña, and with all that torrential rain, I figured the cheese would wash off naturally. So I left it.
Over the next few days and weeks, friends would comment on the cheese. I told them the story and how it would be cowardly for me to remove it. Most nodded their heads and changed the subject. Others urged me to take it off. A fortnight later, the cheese remained intact.
My parents in particular told me I was a moron, and pleaded with me to remove it every time I’d visit. But parental nagging goes down differently in your mid-20s, without the threat of being grounded or banned from the TV. My dad would repeatedly tell me that I was “ruining” my car. I’d chuckle.
I mean this was a slice of cheese after all – beyond being an eyesore, what was the worst that could happen as I waited for it to wash off?
As the weeks turned into months, the cheese kept its shape and sheen. By now, I was kind of curious to see how long it could last.
New Year’s came and went, with the cheese’s shiny surface developing a matte finish. By the end of February, thanks to a few scorching days, the slice had baked into the duco and started to splinter into hardened nibs.
Hardly resembling a piece of cheese at this point, I felt I had won, and went to remove it. Only I couldn’t. The cheese nibs appeared fused into the bonnet.
Things worsened when I tried to flick them off. Each nib took with it a dot of paint they had covered. Aghast at the sight of the raw metal of my bonnet, I drove to a smash repairer to get a professional opinion. I was told that this area – directly above the engine – could not simply be spot painted, because the intense warmth generated below meant it required a special heat treatment.
The whole bonnet needed to be stripped, repainted and treated, I was told. A cheaper option would be to buy a new bonnet, for about $1,000 if I was lucky. Not only that – I was told I couldn’t just leave it be, as the cheese had removed the finish that protected the metal from rusting.
As we grow older, it’s easy to treat parental guidance – which we were once obliged to accept – as an annoyance. But it’s clear that, having clocked up more kilometres on the literal and metaphorical odometer, they know a thing or two about car maintenance.
I’m yet to commit to replacing the hood. To protect against rusting, I’ve been experimenting with protective coverings, like someone wearing a hat to cover a bad haircut. Unlike hair, though, the duco will not grow back. Initially I patched the stain with magnetic P-plates, but these had a penchant for getting stolen. Nowadays, attempting to appeal to Sydneysiders’ humanitarian side, I use a larger magnetic sign I had printed with a charity’s logo. So far, no one has pinched it.
Please learn from my ordeal: Peel cheese off your car while you still can. Parental nagging has its benefits. And never eat plasticky cheese singles, that stuff is indestructible.
