Milk, why the hell do we bother?
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
Its happened to us all.
Youre on the weekly shop, just ambling down the aisle past the yogurt and cheese, when you come to it...
The milk.
Suddenly youre all in a panic.
Do we have milk?
Do we have enough to see us through the week?
Is there enough for a traditional English breakfast (cup of tea and a fag), tomorrow before work?
The questions are endless. For some reason there is a gene, which prevents us from remembering the contents of the fridge.
Few make the conscious decision not to buy the milk. As British people, we simply cant even think about drinking a cup of tea without a healthy dose of white liquid from a cows breast. So we just buy the two-liter milk and forget about the ordeal that is the dairy aisle.
Until you get home, and discover three unopened bottles lurking in the fridge door. Suspiciously, you dont know where they came from until you consult your flat mate/family/partner and find out that they too have had the same instinctive urge to buy milk. You slide the bottle in alongside the extra margarine and cucumber you forgot you had and so bought just in case.
And so begins the race to drink the milk before the exploration date.
Youre drinking endless cups of tea.
Youre eating cereal three meals a day with diced cucumber on top.
Youre washing your face with milk.
Youre inviting cats in from all around the area.
The milk still wont just leave.
So the day after the exploration date you find there is just enough milk for one last bowl of Cornflakes.
But you dare not drink it past the exploration date branded on the side of the carton. Oh no, the people who decided that obviously know what theyre talking about. Not the day before. Not the day after. Right now.
You smell it, but you dont know what its supposed to smell like. As a rule you dont normally go round smelling milk. You look at it. (If it looks like cheese dont drink it.) If it still holds a lot of milk properties you deem it breakfast and pour it on your cereal.
But the exploration date is still hanging over your head, and with every mouthful youre sure youre breaking some law somewhere about milk drinking.
By now a week has passed, and you must once more return to the primordial experience that is the supermarket. Everything is going fine, until you enter the hell that is the dairy aisle.
And do we learn from the previous weeks fiasco?
No.
We carefully place our two-liter bottle of milk in the trolley together with the cucumber and margarine.
Just in case...
Youre on the weekly shop, just ambling down the aisle past the yogurt and cheese, when you come to it...
The milk.
Suddenly youre all in a panic.
Do we have milk?
Do we have enough to see us through the week?
Is there enough for a traditional English breakfast (cup of tea and a fag), tomorrow before work?
The questions are endless. For some reason there is a gene, which prevents us from remembering the contents of the fridge.
Few make the conscious decision not to buy the milk. As British people, we simply cant even think about drinking a cup of tea without a healthy dose of white liquid from a cows breast. So we just buy the two-liter milk and forget about the ordeal that is the dairy aisle.
Until you get home, and discover three unopened bottles lurking in the fridge door. Suspiciously, you dont know where they came from until you consult your flat mate/family/partner and find out that they too have had the same instinctive urge to buy milk. You slide the bottle in alongside the extra margarine and cucumber you forgot you had and so bought just in case.
And so begins the race to drink the milk before the exploration date.
Youre drinking endless cups of tea.
Youre eating cereal three meals a day with diced cucumber on top.
Youre washing your face with milk.
Youre inviting cats in from all around the area.
The milk still wont just leave.
So the day after the exploration date you find there is just enough milk for one last bowl of Cornflakes.
But you dare not drink it past the exploration date branded on the side of the carton. Oh no, the people who decided that obviously know what theyre talking about. Not the day before. Not the day after. Right now.
You smell it, but you dont know what its supposed to smell like. As a rule you dont normally go round smelling milk. You look at it. (If it looks like cheese dont drink it.) If it still holds a lot of milk properties you deem it breakfast and pour it on your cereal.
But the exploration date is still hanging over your head, and with every mouthful youre sure youre breaking some law somewhere about milk drinking.
By now a week has passed, and you must once more return to the primordial experience that is the supermarket. Everything is going fine, until you enter the hell that is the dairy aisle.
And do we learn from the previous weeks fiasco?
No.
We carefully place our two-liter bottle of milk in the trolley together with the cucumber and margarine.
Just in case...
