I Don't Like Milk

Milk

I don't like milk. I use it sometimes on my cereal but just enough to dampen it. Certainly not enough to have leftover to drink. I like chocolate milk and even strawberry milk. I like milk shakes and ice cream sundaes. I like pudding and cream pies. I even like eggnog. But I don't like milk.

I ask myself why since the taste is the same in all my favorites but I do not like it plain in a glass. And then I see it.

There sits the glass in front of me. I am five years old. I have finished my dinner and all that remains is the half full glass of cold white milk. Mommy says to drink it and then I may be excused. Only, I am full and I tell her that I don't want it. But then, Daddy says that I can't get down until I drink the milk.
So there I sit on my chair on my two telephone books with the glass of lukewarm milk in front of me on the table. Mommy washes all the dishes and stops only to encourage me to drink the now warm, stale milk. Daddy orders me to drink it and warns that I will sit there until I finish it. It is now yucky . One tiny sip confirms my suspicion that room temperature milk is not good at all.
Mommy finished the dishes and goes to sit with Daddy to watch TV. I cry. I try another tiny sip and gag a little. Daddy says that if I haven't drunk the milk by bedtime, he will spank me and then put me to bed. The clock ticks ominously:
Bedtime, tick, bedtime, tock, bedtime, tick, bedtime, tock.

My bedtime passes and Daddy is really mad at me. I can't drink the milk. Mommy says to let me sit until they are ready for bed and then deal with me if the milk still remains. I can tell that she wants me to drink it to save myself a spanking. but I just can't.Finally it is their bedtime and I am given one more chance. but it is no use. I can't. I won't. I'd rather have a spanking. I get my way. I get the spanking and the milk is poured down the sink. While Daddy puts me in my bed, crying and distressed, Mommy washes the glass, dries it and puts it in the cabinet. Mommy is crying too just like me.

the next night, I climb up onto my telephone books to take my place at the table. I look at my glass. Koolaid!!! I check out my sister, Rachael's, glass. Milk! Never again will I see milk in my glass- only Rachael's. Mommy saved me after all. Sometimes Koolaid and sometimes water graces my place setting in the years that follow. But never the dreaded milk except when Mommy adds some of the wonderful powder that makes my milk chocolate!
So, now I am 56 years old. All my adult life I have only kept enough milk in the house for cooking and dampening cereal. When my sister visited, I'd buy a gallon for her to have since it is her favorite drink. I pour whatever is left when she goes home down the sink, smiling quietly to myself.
I don't like milk. I like chocolate milk and even strawberry milk. I like milk shakes and ice cream sundaes. I like pudding and cream pies. I even like eggnog. But I don't like milk.


Barb Curtis
October 29, 2010