Kraft Cheese and Macaroni

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was:

     Is Kraft Macaroni and Cheese difficult to make?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

     Yes, insolent one, it is VERY difficult to make, especially when you don't have hands -- a condition you may soon experience due to your lack of sufficient respect for The Oracle!
     Of course, this is only from an end user perspective. Let us take a short journey to Battle Ax, Michigan, where the Kraft Company union bakers are hard at work producing macaroni and cheese -- or, "Kraft Cheese and Macaroni," as they now fondly refer to it. Please note the difference. "Cheese" before "Macaroni." What gifted marketers!!
     As we stop outside the plant door, we are greeted by Mimi, our bouncy, perky, and peppy Kraft Plant Tour Guide. Mimi shakes our hands vigorously and tells us enthusiastically about a hundred times that she's glad to meet us. She provides us with official Kraft Protecto-Smocks and hardhats, and we enter the big metal doors.
     Inside, bakers are busily hurrying and scurrying about, pouring tons of processed, purified, petrified, percolated white flour into enormous bubbling vats. We stare in awe as the vats churn and spin. We watch as gallons of milk, streams of eggs, and beaches of salt are added to the mixture, which is now congealing into enough dough to cover Coney Island.
     "Over there," Mimi squawks in her annoyingly girlish twang, finger pointed to a network of hoses nearly obscured by the vats "is where the dough comes out into the Pasta-izers, which make that neat little elbow macaroni shape that families across America love so much." We watch expectantly, and sure enough, the hoses wriggle, and through the other end, miles and miles of wet macaroni noodles spew forth. It's amazing, in a sickening kind of way.
     "It takes approximately four hours for the wet macaroni dough to harden into the dry, brittle, plastic consistency that we ship it in." Mimi explains as we walk to the conveyor belt where miles of noodles are traveling up into an unseen chamber beyond. "That's the drying room. Temperatures in the drying rooms are a constant 285 degrees Farenheit. This is the ideal drying temperature." Mimi continues to explain with a smile that we can't actually go into the drying rooms, or we'll get severely burned. We chuckle briefly, and continue on.
     We stop at a large viewing area outside the middle of the drying room. At the exact center of the drying room is the Cutting Room, where massive blades spin continuously on an enormous fanbelt-like contraption. The macaroni noodles are cut "in mid-dry," Mimi explains, "so that they're not too soft nor too hard. Just like the beds in Goldilocks and the Three Bears!" We laugh again and, as Mimi turns away, roll our eyes at each other and shrug our shoulders.
     "Now we come to the highlight of the tour!" Mimi announces gleefully. "The Cheese!!" Ooh, the Cheese! We've finally come to the Cheese. We are very excited.
     Before entering the Cheese Room, Mimi hands us Kraft Protective Goggles, so we aren't blinded by the dazzling dayglow orange chemicals that give the Cheese its familiar color.
     We enter.
     Even with our goggles in place, the Cheese Room is startlingly bright. Huge silver cannisters glow brilliantly with their flourescent orange contents. Human forms cloaked in aluminum-colored suits man mysterious levers and switches safely above the tops of the cannisters. The rich smells of romano, cheddar, parmesan, and sulfur are stifling. We can hardly breathe. We lean against a column for support while our heads clear, and our lungs adjust to the feeling of having too little oxygen.
     "It took more than twenty years to perfect the Cheese recipe," Mimi recites as we regain our senses. "Years of research and millions of dollars have resulted in the 'sauce' you and your families now enjoy in your homes. I can't tell you exactly what goes into the Cheese. It's a closely guarded secret. But I can tell you that the Cheese powder has roughly the same nutritional value as Tang. The first astronauts could have substituted a glass of Kraft Cheese in their daily breakfasts, and come out in tip top physical shape." We are impressed, although queazy, at the prospect.
     Mimi leads us into a small white office tucked against the base of the far wall in the Cheese Room. Inside, we are introduced to Jack, the Cheese Room General Manager. He shakes our hands firmly, and we note the seemingly permanent orange tint on his fingers.
     "The Cheese Room wasn't always the picture of precision it is today." Jack tells us in his bellowing voice. "Years before Cheese research was completed, the Cheese was produced in large vats, similar to the ones in which the dough is made. And everyone wore Smocks, like yours. After an unfortunate incident occured years ago, we re-examined our safety measures and implemented the procedures you see today."
     Jack points to a newspaper clipping on the wall. It shows a neat, grinning, dark-haired young man, probably a college photo, and the front yard of a small house being scoured by policemen and dogs. We read as Jack recounts the story of this man, a former Cheese Room worker, who started complaining of frequent headaches and slowly began suffering from a personality disorder. "No one noticed at first," Jack said solemnly, "but one day, Robert didn't come into work and he didn't call. He was always real responsible. So someone went to check on him..."
     Apparently, Robert had purchased a shotgun and slaughtered his wife and three children. He was discovered still in the house, naked and drooling, yelling "It told me to do it! It said 'Robert, I'm the Cheesiest! I'm the Cheesiest!! Kill your family, Robert! Kill your family!!!'"
     "A terrible, terrible thing," Jack says quietly. We stand, heads bowed, in a moment of silence. "On the other hand," Jack perks up, "it resulted in one helluva an advertising campaign!"
     We say our goodbyes to Jack, and Mimi leads us to the Kraft Guest Center, where we return our Smocks and Goggles, and are offered beverages and snacks. Mimi thanks us profusely for coming today, shaking our hands vigorously yet again. We are each given three boxes of "Kraft Cheese and Macaroni," and we exchange final pleasantries and exit the Kraft Plant.
     Once outside, we quickly deposit the "Kraft Cheese and Macaroni" in the garbage, and rush to our cars, never to return.
     So you now see that not only is "Kraft Cheese and Macaroni" difficult to make, it is, in fact, unfit for human consumption.
     You owe The Oracle a large box of Rolaids.