spilled milk

How many gallons of milk will fit in the back of your truck?

At least 43 fit in mine---and then some.

We had more-than-a-mini milk disaster today at work when after investigating why a gallon of nonfat felt a bit on the warmer side one of my co-workers discovered that the refrigerator was more than 20° over the prescribed limit. This is not to imply that the milk was boiling, rancid or even lukewarm, it was just too warm to serve. Bravo, Starbucks and her mighty standards (and bravo, Health Department, too).

The refrigerator was easy to fix (they tell you not to put things on top of vents for a reason), but it contained most of the rest of our milk supply for the day---something which matters, um, a latté. So I took off, store credit card in hand, to the closest supermarket. There I seized upon two shopping carts, commandeering them to the dairy section, where I summarily transferred all of the milk in Safeway's refrigerator into my carts. Okay, not all of it, but the take was impressive.

Impressive enough to attract quite a bit of attention from my fellow shoppers.

"Having a lot of people over for breakfast tomorrow?" asked one.

"Trying to give the cashier a story to tell?"

"You should of bought a cow."

One woman suggested that I take the no-good milk and use it in a cosmetic milk bath. When else am I to have so much milk on my hands? She even offered to buy the cucumber slices to lay on my eyelids.

I accepted the help of the bagger to accompany my lactic cargo and me to my truck, where we lined most of the bed with rows and rows of the stuff, almost enough to prevent completely any risk of them sliding around during the trip back.

It all worked out in the end. My shipment arrived just as my fellow baristas were steaming the last available milk (from other refrigerators, of course). Not a drink ordered was not handed out. The only casualty of the day ended up being the too-warm milk---each gallon of which I had to spill out into the sink at the end of my shift.

Don't cry.