Greg introduces the Cheese and the infamous Cheese Touch early on in the novel. Although the Cheese is only mentioned a few times throughout the novel, it becomes a powerful symbol of immaturity and social rejection. The Cheese symbolizes everything Greg fears about middle school: being excluded and seen as “different,” and the inability to escape from the past.

Greg says “[t]hat piece of cheese has been sitting on the blacktop since last spring” (9), and for some reason it has never been removed. Over time, the Cheese has become moldy and disgusting, and everyone at school avoids it. Greg recalls how one day last year “this kid named Darren Walsh touched the Cheese with his finger, and that’s what started this thing called the Cheese Touch” (9). The Cheese Touch ripped through the school and became a game similar to the Cooties, and only one person could have the Cheese Touch at a time. If someone gets the Cheese Touch, “[they’re] stuck with it until [they] pass it on to someone else” (9), and whoever has the Cheese Touch is viewed as a social pariah who is isolated and avoided by everyone. The only way to avoid getting the Cheese Touch is to cross one’s fingers, and Greg’s fear of the Cheese Touch was so intense that he ended up “taping [his fingers] together so they’d stay crossed all the time,” and even though he got a D in handwriting, “it was totally worth it” (10).