Welcome Home

I was finally given a couple weeks off school and I figured, what better way to spend it than with my parents I barely see anymore?

I forgot that I still had three sisters living at home.  It took less than an hour to realize I had made a huge mistake.

As I started writing, Britney Spears was singing at the other end of the house and yet I swear, she sounded like she was right behind me.  The fighting is constant, especially when it comes to cleaning bedrooms.  There is a constant battle over turning the swamp cooler on and off, and either way, my sweat is burying itself into the couch fabric, which mingled with the previous sweat of all currently residing sisters and parents, makes an original odor that, while not entirely unpleasant, makes sitting down feel odd.

The most unusual fight, though, is over the milk.  Last year, the next-door neighbor got a milk cow, and since every morning, the cow produces more milk than she needs, she’s been giving my parents the extra that would otherwise go to waste.  This has been a boon in several respects, because milk has always been a major expense under this household.  Going a year without having to pay for that leaves more than a few dollars free for something truly valuable: gas in the tank so my parents can leave and have a couple hours to themselves.

Plus, they also get the cream that settles on the top.  They’ve taken to making their own butter and when somebody got an ice cream machine for their birthday, the cream has come to save an extra ten bucks a week on dessert that they honestly don’t need but has become a staple in the American diet.

The one week I’m home, though, the next-door neighbor has a lot of family in town and had not extra milk to bring over.  This left my parents with no choice but to get store milk.  The way my one sister carried on, you would have thought she’d been molested.

Before this cow came and took over my family’s life, there were two types of milk we subsisted on: 2% and Skim.  We had a brief flirtation with Vitamin D, but it was like dating the bad girl.  She’s fun the first couple of dates, but after that, you realize that you’re just not comfortable making her a permanent fixture in your life.

2% was definitely the popular choice.  It had enough fat to give flavor but not enough to curdle in your stomach as you wait for digestion to run its course.  Skim was entirely my mom’s choice.  She could say that it was the healthiest milk but we weren’t fooled.  Skim is not milk.  Skim is water mixed with white dye to fool the unsuspecting buyer and the deluded diet freak.

I grew up on 2% and I turned out all right.  But when my parents buy a couple gallons of the 2%, there was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.  How dare they put that flavorless piss into the refrigerator?

I don’t really drink milk anymore.  I find the various lemonades and Langer’s juices to be more refreshing at any time of day, but I took offense to their attitude towards the milk.  I made sure to do my part in polishing off the two gallons.  And then the neighbor had extra milk again, and just to see what their whining was about, I had some.

And they were right.  The neighbor’s milk is way better.  My childhood feels so much less compared to theirs because this milk never came into mine.

I have this consolation, though: I’m still taller.