“MOM, WE ARE OUT OF MILK AGAIN!” How many times a month do I hear that? In my mind, I answered, “‘WE’ would imply I drank some of it, which I didn’t because I’m lactose intolerant, because I’m over 50 and I can only eat food that taste like crap. Therefore, I don’t really give two flips.” But instead, I sing-song, “Yes, I know. I’m going to the store in the morning.”
Then I began to think about just how much milk we go through in a week and how my dad would always quote the price of milk when we left it in the bottom of our cereal bowl, and scarily enough, I have no idea what the cost of milk is. I know that might sound pretentious, but somewhere between cutting coupons (yes, we once actually cut them….and with scissors, not electronically) and trying to buy enough food for my large family, I stopped looking at the price of milk. Hell, I don’t even know how much a stamp is anymore. I can help my high school children with complex calculus problems, and bake a 12 layer chocolate cake, but I have no idea how much it cost to mail a copy of my “Worlds Best Mom” certificate to my college roommate in Chicago….but more on that later.
So, as my obsession with “how much does a gallon of milk cost?” continued, I started calling my friends to see if they were as out of touch as myself. One person quoted their gallon of 2% milk, one quoted their Almond Milk, and one quoted their Hemp Milk...you know who you are!!! I probably should be happy for them, but still I wonder if they are correct.
My children, like most children in America, have the luxury of saying when they are out of something, and magically the next day, a replacement shows up. Unlike my parents, who actually watched a milkman come around and deliver milk in glass bottles by horse and carriage once a week, my children usually just open the fridge and it’s there with zero effort. I always love to teach a lesson to our children, and it secretly gives me a little pleasure when they moan and groan while I do, so I made my 7th grader who complained about NO MILK go with me to the grocery store the following day. Once we both saw how much that gallon cost (which was $3.30), I explained how much of her allowance would be used if she had to pay for the milk herself and asked her to please not be wasteful.
After getting home from the very stressful grocery trip, I went to make myself a stiff drink. “John, we are out of Tequila again,” I yelled, and was excited that I actually did know the price of that beverage. “Yes, I know,” he sing-songed back. “I’m going to the liquor store tomorrow.”
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