What's the deal with cheese?

Have you noticed recently how damn much cheese costs in our fancy-dancy grocery stores? Cheese used to be a sort of staple in the diets of many Americans. It makes sense being that those go-getter dairy cattle (mainly the holsteins) produce literally gobs of milk. I've seen 'em up close in my lifetime and it's amazing that an animal that with one not-so-directed kick can both knock your teeth out and provide you with upwards of 10-20 gallons of milk on a daily basis.

To me, that's one hell of a multi-tasker in the world of domesticated animals.

The cheese prices, though, have me flabbergasted.

Not too long ago I was running through the local Cub Foods store (which disgusted me but that's another story for another day) and needed a block of cheese. Not a want, it was a need. I arrived at a block of medium cheddar and began to notice how outrageous the prices were. Damn! The little 8 oz. blocks which used to be about $1.79 were suddenly approaching $3.00. I almost had a cheese seizure.

Come on. I know that gas prices have more than tripled in by 14 years (has it really been that long) of driving but the cheese price jump equates to a jump of over $2.00/lb in a few short months. I don't think we have a sudden shortage of holstein cows. To the contrary actually. I think that the cows are too numerous and could easily overtake us if they weren't so damn laid back chowing on grass all day long.

Yes, it would be a future where we were forced to serve our holstein overlords and they drank our milk at a leisurely pace. Think of the oddities in this alternate future. Human cheese. Cows eating male humans. Mandatory castration of males by our bovine rulers. The tables would be horrifically turned. I think we need to keep a watchful eye on cattle everywhere. They are shifty bastards who may or may not be witholding milk production in a sick and twisted plan to bankrupt us with escalated dairy prices.

Am I way off base here or am I eerily close to the truth?