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The most difficult part for me of being snowed in for almost a week is the frustration created by not being able to get to a grocery store, and knowing that even if I could, the shelves have been stripped bare by transplanted Texans and Californians who mistake Colorado for Alaska and believe every big snowstorm is the beginning of 6 solid months of endless, icy night. The first items to be snapped up in a panic are always milk, bread and eggs. The last two I can take or leave, however, the first is a major staple of my diet.
To say that I love milk would be a laughable understatement. I drink milk the way some people breathe in air. If milk had alcohol content, I'd be Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas. At the end of a long work day, for me a "tall, cold one" is white and frothy and high in vitamin D. Were it legal, yes, I might even consider marrying milk. I've never met a glass, carton or bottle I didn't like.
So when the first flakes of this second storm started to drift downwards, I thought about leaving immediately to buy milk. But Tery was leaving work early and planning to stop on her way home. So it was that I was crestfallen (not yet at devastated) when she came home lactose-less. She'd stopped at three stores, all out. The problem is not only people buying it all, but the inability of trucks to penetrate the frozen perimeter of the city to deliver more.
All night with the prospect of the milk running out, I found I could think of little else. Oh, how I thirsted, and nothing else would do. I even found myself wondering how bad it would be if I started watering it down to make it last longer, a prospect as unimaginable as doing the same to beer, just to keep the liquor analogy going. I sweated it out Thursday night, all day Friday, then Friday night went into the kennels. On the way we stopped at an Albertson's, where we saw dairy case after gleaming dairy case full of milk. I immediately seized three gallons, not letting them out of my sight until we got to the car. It is a testament to how cold it was Fri night that I, who Tery frequently accuses of acting as though "we live on the face of the sun" in my haste to get home from the store, left the gallons in the trunk all night without the slightest twinge. And Saturday morning upon first arriving home, I helped myself to two large, frosty glasses of heaven on the spot.
~*~
The more observant among you will have noticed I said "we" up there. Tery insisted on accompanying me to the hospital Friday night. I tried to dissuade her, fearing she'd put a cramp in my mid-shift napping schedule, but she said she didn't care if I slept. I thought she was coming to catch up on work missed after one and a half snow days, but no sooner did I get my coat off than she was off to the karaoke bar up the street on foot. It turns out her true motivation was nothing more than guilt at making me drive across town in inclement weather.
At 2:30 a.m. or so she came stumbling back into the hospital, more than a little drunk. This didn't anger me as it normally would since she wasn't driving. Completely unmindful of my warnings to avoid setting off the dogs, she stomped around and dragged chairs across the floor noisily. When I started the morning feeding and walking routine, she volunteered to help. I tried setting her simple tasks, but she was a walking "buzzed driving is drunk driving" ad. I'd tell her to feed a dog, even fill the bowl myself and put it in her hands, and she'd end up sitting on the floor with the animal, telling him how good he was and how much she loved him. I told her to give one dog his seizure medication. I turned my back for half a second and heard the faint clatter of 50 tiny pills bouncing across the floor. "Well, at least that will keep you busy," I said. It did indeed, and when she'd finally collected them all she contented herself with sitting on the floor and admiring my efficiency and authoritarian way with the dogs.
"You're my best employee," she mooned up at me. "You work so hard and you never call in." The fact was lost on her that it was pretty difficult to call in when the boss was 2 feet away on the couch, so I just rolled with it. At the end of the night she developed hiccups, and looked quite hilarious staggering down the hall crookedly while hiccuping, like Andy Capp. While driving her car into work that night, my moderate speed of 45 on the highway had earned me such comments as, "I don't even go this fast when it's sunny out." On the way home going this same speed (or faster) except with her drunk, I got instead "You're such a good driver." Is it any wonder I prefer milk to beer?
To say that I love milk would be a laughable understatement. I drink milk the way some people breathe in air. If milk had alcohol content, I'd be Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas. At the end of a long work day, for me a "tall, cold one" is white and frothy and high in vitamin D. Were it legal, yes, I might even consider marrying milk. I've never met a glass, carton or bottle I didn't like.
So when the first flakes of this second storm started to drift downwards, I thought about leaving immediately to buy milk. But Tery was leaving work early and planning to stop on her way home. So it was that I was crestfallen (not yet at devastated) when she came home lactose-less. She'd stopped at three stores, all out. The problem is not only people buying it all, but the inability of trucks to penetrate the frozen perimeter of the city to deliver more.
All night with the prospect of the milk running out, I found I could think of little else. Oh, how I thirsted, and nothing else would do. I even found myself wondering how bad it would be if I started watering it down to make it last longer, a prospect as unimaginable as doing the same to beer, just to keep the liquor analogy going. I sweated it out Thursday night, all day Friday, then Friday night went into the kennels. On the way we stopped at an Albertson's, where we saw dairy case after gleaming dairy case full of milk. I immediately seized three gallons, not letting them out of my sight until we got to the car. It is a testament to how cold it was Fri night that I, who Tery frequently accuses of acting as though "we live on the face of the sun" in my haste to get home from the store, left the gallons in the trunk all night without the slightest twinge. And Saturday morning upon first arriving home, I helped myself to two large, frosty glasses of heaven on the spot.
~*~
The more observant among you will have noticed I said "we" up there. Tery insisted on accompanying me to the hospital Friday night. I tried to dissuade her, fearing she'd put a cramp in my mid-shift napping schedule, but she said she didn't care if I slept. I thought she was coming to catch up on work missed after one and a half snow days, but no sooner did I get my coat off than she was off to the karaoke bar up the street on foot. It turns out her true motivation was nothing more than guilt at making me drive across town in inclement weather.
At 2:30 a.m. or so she came stumbling back into the hospital, more than a little drunk. This didn't anger me as it normally would since she wasn't driving. Completely unmindful of my warnings to avoid setting off the dogs, she stomped around and dragged chairs across the floor noisily. When I started the morning feeding and walking routine, she volunteered to help. I tried setting her simple tasks, but she was a walking "buzzed driving is drunk driving" ad. I'd tell her to feed a dog, even fill the bowl myself and put it in her hands, and she'd end up sitting on the floor with the animal, telling him how good he was and how much she loved him. I told her to give one dog his seizure medication. I turned my back for half a second and heard the faint clatter of 50 tiny pills bouncing across the floor. "Well, at least that will keep you busy," I said. It did indeed, and when she'd finally collected them all she contented herself with sitting on the floor and admiring my efficiency and authoritarian way with the dogs.
"You're my best employee," she mooned up at me. "You work so hard and you never call in." The fact was lost on her that it was pretty difficult to call in when the boss was 2 feet away on the couch, so I just rolled with it. At the end of the night she developed hiccups, and looked quite hilarious staggering down the hall crookedly while hiccuping, like Andy Capp. While driving her car into work that night, my moderate speed of 45 on the highway had earned me such comments as, "I don't even go this fast when it's sunny out." On the way home going this same speed (or faster) except with her drunk, I got instead "You're such a good driver." Is it any wonder I prefer milk to beer?
