YOU CAN CRY OVER SPILLED MILK!

The Chilled, Icy Glass of Fresh Milk

The milk that went very bad, and included curds and green mold

Oh, the joys of childhood! Mother bakes oatmeal raisin cookies, or perhaps chocolate chip. You rush to the fridge and pull out the fresh carton of icy whole milk. What counterbalances all that ooey gooey cookie goodness better than a cold glass of milk? Nothing, that’s what!

Unless it goes through a phase change of sorts. The putrefaction that occurs when your brother leaves the milk out, in the sun, for an hour. Then, puts it on top of the fridge, accidentally. It remains there for six hours. Your father sees it, takes a deep breath of annoyance, “Those darn kids!’ and puts it back in the top shelf of the fridge. That’s where the milk goes!

And the damage, once invoked, can not be stopped. Like a dead thing buried, the milk will curl in on itself, circle like a dying animal, and scatter into beads of disgust. Green mold forms in the lining of the carton. If the sniff test is applied, the drinker may save himself.

The rancor of sour milk is a smell nearly as bad as the taste. The bad taste.

Just as the cold waters of the toilet greet an unexpected backside in the gloom of night, a rude and shocking awakening, so too comes the vile liquid of bitter, sour milk.

If sour milk is not discovered in time, the drinker will get a mouthful of Satan’s sour sperm. Note: this is a true badform metaphor, readers! hold my beer, I’m going to extend it.

It was a November day. I couldn’t believe Mom made cookies. With her cigarette on the kitchen counter sending its wisp of smoke into the warm air, Mom dropped rich tablespoons of cookie batter onto two cookie sheets. We could not wait to sample those hot morsels of deliciousness!

My brother and sister and I got out the cold carton of milk and waited for the timer to ring on the oven. Ten minutes ticked slowly by, as we poured our icy glasses of milk.

Mom used the spatula and put hot cookies on a special red plate in front of us, eagerly waiting for our sugary treat. I bit into the chocolate chip cookie first, and the warm milk chocolate glided across my tongue. I was having a mouthgasm of ecstacy! Then, I poured milk from its chilled container into my glass. My dear siblings followed suit.

A big gulp of milk went into my eager mouth, and that’s when I realized it was sour. The worst taste I’ve ever experienced (I was only twelve at that point!) destroyed me.

I didn’t swallow! Oh, no Sir. I SPAT!

I ran to the sink, retched loudly and choked the large mouthful of bitter curds into the sink. It looked like the white matter of an acne explosion.

My mom ran over and said, “Oh, my God! what in the hell!” just as my brother and sister ran to the sink, spewing chunks from Satan’s vile milk teat — or worse — into the stainless steel receptacle.

Mom caught a whiff of the vile stench and turned on the tap, washing white beads of putrefied curd down the drain.

As we slammed handfuls of fresh, clear water into our milk-contaminated maws and rinsed the white devil chunks from the innocent lining of our cheeks, tears ran. Oh, the salty tears ran.

Our innocence was destroyed by the bad taste. The bad taste that taught us a lesson.

What’s pure can be destroyed.

What’s liquid can become curd.

What’s milk can become sour poison with a very bad taste.

Thank you to Sally Prag for inviting Badform writers to pen essays around the theme of “The Bad Taste.”

I look forward to the month of November’s offerings, and wish all my fellow writers happy times writing about “The Bad Taste.”

Have you visited Badform? It’s great fun. Shuck your pride and come laugh your backside off!