The Chocolate Milk Incident

While my wife Denise has always been a lover of pickles, I don’t believe her intake of pickles increased at all during her pregnancy. Her only genuine craving was for chocolate milk. Not just any old chocolate milk mind you, it had to be Primo Chocolate Milk. It’s thick, rich, extremely tasty and available only in New Zealand as far as I know. Made from only the choicest of cows. It’s the kind of chocolate milk that you gulp down like you’re at a Fraternity toga party.

Denise really took a shine to this particular chocolate milk, which was all the more bizarre because she hardly, if ever, drank chocolate milk in her adult life. For nine months in our household the Primo Chocolate Milk took it’s place right next to the 1.5% milk jug in our fridge. I would occasionally sneak a sip here and there, but there never seemed to be enough to go around and I would end up feeling guilty, as if I had snatched a lollipop from a child.

This one particular night, as I was preparing to head out for a game of Squash, Denise asked me to pick up a jug of Primo Chocolate Milk as we were fresh out. Now being a typical male I lack that certain gene that allows a person to actually remember things.

When she said, “Doug can you please pick up some chocolate milk.” (Primo was assumed). Things such as the high desperate tone of her voice, the deep red texture in her face, and the tightly clenched fists escaped me. I left the house with a mind as clear and vacant as a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes

Squash is a game that is played mostly in the U.K. and other Commonwealth countries of which New Zealand is a part. The game is a lot like racquetball, which is played primarily in the United States with the main difference being that the ball in Squash bounces like a dried apricot. You have to run around the court at Mach speed to hit the ball at its peak height of 2 millimeters. If the ball bounces twice before hitting the front wall you loose the point. Fortunately the founders of the game were kind enough to provide you with longer racquets so getting to the ball isn’t an impossible feat.

After a good hour and a half of prolonged hacking fits and frequent checks of my heart rate we retired upstairs to the bar.

It seems to be a New Zealand Squash tradition that after you burn every available calorie in your body, you replenish it by drinking beer. Now I’ve never really thought of beer as an actual fluid. It always struck me as more along the lines of a milkshake. They’re both high on my list, but not my drinks of choice after a week lost in the desert. But not being one to buck tradition in my new home, I drank heartily with my newfound Kiwi squash mates.

I’m not sure what the beer did to my thirst but it did do one thing.

It got me drunk.

Alcohol seems to have a boomerang effect when you’re starving, extremely fatigued, extremely thirsty, and in good company. Time also had a funny way of slipping past and the next thing I knew it was 10:30pm and high time for me to get home as it was a ‘school’ night.

Jaguars, known for their stealth, hunt by night from tree limbs, when their unsuspecting prey wander by underneath, the Jaguar springs from it’s perch and rends the flesh from its prey with its razor sharp claws. It’s bloodthirsty fangs lash out for the throat of their victim. The last thing the quarry hears is the snapping of its own neck as its life ebbs away.

And so it was for me.

I opened the front door and the grin left my face faster than you can say ‘Sister Mary Joseph’. The Jaguar, lying in wait, loomed above me. She opened her massive jaws, her teeth gleaming in the dark and said, “Did you get the chocolate milk?”

Every built in alarm, whistle, and bell went off in my head. My drunkenness was gone in an instant. A surge of adrenaline coursed through my veins. My mind raced. I quickly scanned my short-term memory for any left over reference to what she was talking about. No such luck...but wait I did find a scrap of something in Sector-G that was worth examining further. It all came back to me in a flood. I did seem to recall some obscure reference to chocolate milk as I was walking out the door to play Squash earlier.

As I stood there in a surprised stupor, I realized that I had to respond and right quick. I knew that word selection was critical if my life was to be spared. Somehow I had to come up with something at the drop of a hat to placate this jungle beast before me.

I searched.

I scanned.

I accessed all files on the English language with cross-references to Byron, Keats, and Shakespeare.

I spun 100 different tales in my head in an instant and rejected all the ones with references to aliens or drive by shootings.

Slowly in what seemed like ages to me, but really only took a flash of a second, I constructed my story. I looked the beast straight in the eye and with all the courage I could muster I said, “What chocolate milk?”

The Jaguar leapt!

Although I didn’t hear my flesh being rendered or my neck snapping, I did feel my life force ebbing from me. I silently cursed myself for not coming up with a more convincing story, but it was the best I could do in a pinch.

I tried to explain in the calmest of voices how I had met some new friends, lost track of time, but she would have none of it. Her keen sense of smell detected some of the jungle juice that I had imbibed earlier and she launched into another round of ferocious attacks. It seemed that absolutely nothing on this Earth would distract her from her attacks except a jug of Primo Chocolate Milk.

I knew the dairy around the corner was long since closed but my embattled brain finally came up with a half way decent idea. I decided to make a good show of it and walk down to the Dairy to see if they had a moonlight special on Wednesday nights. If nothing else it would give me a chance to lick my wounds and work up some better counter attacks to her arguments instead of the usual tried and true, ‘I forgot’, ‘I’m sorry’, and the all time Granddaddy ‘I didn’t hear you say that’.

I made my way to the Dairy and discovered it to be…

Closed.

I stared wistfully through the window, just past the bread, under the neon light in the dairy case between the skim milk and the Memphis Meltdown Ice-cream Sandwiches I could see my quarry. The Primo Chocolate Milk sat there as if taunting me. Only a thin plate of glass separated me from a night of peaceful bliss and happiness. Not jewels, diamonds, or the most rare antiquities could help me in my situation.

My only hope was Primo Chocolate Milk.

So close, but it might as well have been on the moon. I gave the door locks a good test and considered for a moment the ramifications of doing the unthinkable. In the end I went home. Head hung low, a defeated shell of a man.

Copyright 2000 Douglas S. Sassaman

About The Author: Douglas Sassaman is a freelance writer, aspiring novelist, and self-described humorist (who some think should be self-committed). He writes the humor column, 'Life in the Cosmic-Burp' on the web at http://CosmicBurp.com.

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