Post #15

Hands off our milk jug

24th September 2003, lunch time | Comments (1)

A young boy eating corn-on-the-cob at the kitchen table

I don’t remember much from my childhood — my very young childhood — but I do remember the day my mum cut her hair for the first time. It was shorter, it was different. I wouldn’t look at her for days.

I don’t like change.

More specifically; I’m happy for the bad or the boring to change, but things that I consider to be “just fine as they are” should, in my opinion, stay the same.

Examples:

  1. My mum shouldn’t wear makeup or mess with her hair;
  2. My parents should never move house;
  3. Our pets should never die;
  4. Our kitchen table must never, ever be replaced.

These are the things I’ve grown up with, and, little and piddley though they may be, I’d rather like them to remain as they are.

Why am I thinking of all this? I’ll tell you: someone has kidnapped the milk jug.

As far back as I can remember we’ve always had the same milk jug; a sort of brown thing that could happily take a couple of pints, with a good wide base and a friendly air about it. When I recall childhood memories of having breakfast (in my parents’ house, at our kitchen table with my mother, hair and face unsullied) there it is, brown and solid, full of the white stuff.

But I’ve just opened the fridge to pull out some milk, and what do I find? An imposter! A cream-coloured “country style” jug in place of the old family friend.

I staggered back, bumped into the kitchen table, and sat down. Head in hands I stared at the table’s bright, smooth surface, wondering if the Police would... hang on, “bright, smooth surface”?

Good God! Someone’s sanded and varnished the kitchen table! It looks… new, it looks… different… it doesn’t look like our kitchen table at all!

Mum! Mum! Call the Fire Brigade! Call the Home Guard! Call the… wha? What have you done to your hair? … Have you dyed it?!

*Faint*

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  1. Lee:

    It's well worth working your way back through these archives, this post made me laugh out loud (no mean feat).

    Posted 6 months after the fact

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