Why We Never Run Out of Milk
-or-
Who put the damn milk jug back in the fridge with only a teaspoon of milk in it?
It’s a common scenario in just about any household, and at first it seems like there is no logical reason whatsoever that anyone would put an empty milk jug back in the refrigerator. However, being the great thinker that I am, I spent a Saturday afternoon recently and pondered the whole thing. It was then I realized that there really is a quite logical and legitimate reason for it.
In a nutshell, we simply don’t have the time, energy, or stress handling techniques to properly dispose of the empty container. First of all, milk is probably consumed the most in the mornings. It goes great with any breakfast, and is almost required for cereals. Some use it in their coffee as well. So you pour yourself a bowl of cereal, and just before you empty the milk into the bowl you realize it’s almost empty, so you look around, make sure nobody is watching and screw the lid back on it and put it back in the fridge. Had you taken the time to throw it away, here is what would probably have happened:
Right off the bat, the jug doesn’t want to go into the overflowing trash bag, but after you crush the jug, and jump up and down on the garbage there is just enough room to get it in. Since you’re “doing the right thing” today, you might as well go all the way and take the trash out. Once the bag is outside, you realize why no one took it out earlier… You’re out of replacement trash bags.
Oh well, you decide you’ll just have to get some more today while you’re getting more milk. Except you notice the time and suddenly realize you are late for work, so down the road you go, heigh ho!
You day progresses normally, and during your lunch hour you spend the last of your cash. Remembering you have to stop by the store on the way home and get more trash bags and milk, you decide to stop by the bank and get some more cash. The ATM is being refilled by a burly security guard with an armored truck, and all the drive thru lanes are backed up 6 cars deep so you go inside. The situation isn’t much better, but you smile thru it, knowing you did the right thing today and threw out the milk jug and took out the trash.
Just when it was your turn to approach the teller, HER lunch begins, and you have to get in another line. Even though she is just sitting there, taking a bologna sandwich out of a sack and a half-pint carton of milk, and taking her lunch at her station. Finally you get out of the bank, with a crisp new $10.00 bill in your wallet.
When you get back to work, your boss is standing by your desk. He is “concerned” for you because you’re thirty-seven minutes late coming back from lunch. You stammer out a barely audible excuse, “I threw the milk out today”.
At 5:37 PM you can finally leave work and swing by the supermarket for more trash bags. After arriving you realize you are starving, so you swing by the snack aisle first. After about ten minutes walking up and down the aisle you finally settle on your first choice of BBQ potato chips. As you straighten up you notice one of your neighbors whom you haven’t seen in nearly 3 days, so you spend the next 20 minutes having a “catch-up” reunion with them and blocking traffic of other shoppers who are just mean and unsociable.
Finally you part your separate ways and find the trash bags and head for check-out. Almost home, smooth sailing from here… Or it would have been if the 3 people ahead of you didn’t have at least one “price check” item each and ALL want to pay with checks.
You get home to find everyone else has been filling the bagless trashcan with garbage, so you have to empty it all into a new bag, which is now full, so you take it outside, wash out the trash can, put a fresh bag in it then click on the TV to catch the last 30 seconds of your favorite weekly show with your bag of BBQ chips.
But life is not all THAT cruel, you have another favorite show coming on next, so you settle in your favorite chair, open the chips and start munching them down. At the first commercial break you head back to the kitchen for a nice, tall, cold glass of milk.
Which you forgot to pick up at the store.
Reader Comments
Name: Greg H.
Email: Unlisted
Comment: When I was a kid you'd put an empty glass milk bottle on the step at night along with a silver quarter or two, and this guy would come by in a truck during the wee hours and and replace it with a fresh cold bottle. He wore a white uniform with a bow tie and snappy white hat. If I happened to be awake I'd sometimes hear him whistling as he came up the walk, so he must have enjoyed making his rounds. Who dreamed then about ATMs and lines of cars at the bank? Ah, progress... Really enjoyed reading this one, Mike!
Comment: Hmmm...So that's how all those empty milk jugs
ended up in the fridge when you were growing up!
'Cause the waste basket was full... :-)
I love you anyway.
Mom
PS I enjoy your columns and also your new webpage, People Against Terror.
