The Milk Story
I was a chubby little kid when I was 8. Got the mental image in your head? Okay, it’s even chubbier than that. No, seriously. A couple of pounds more… there ya go. That was me.
You see, I was the only son, the mama’s boy, and as such, I was spoiled. Add to this the fact that my mothers biggest fear was watching starving Ethiopians on television and then imagining her dear son’s face on one of the of the babies, and there ya go. “He needs to eat!” my mom would scream to my protesting dad and sister in Chinese. “他一定要長高!”
She says this, of course, as she prepares me an egg and mayonnaise sandwich for breakfast.
One day, my dad had enough of this. In the middle of breakfast, he slammed his chopsticks on the kitchen table with such force that I turned pale. “你塞他好想豬樣!” He screamed in his ex-military voice. This apparently upset my mother a bit, so she said the most logical thing you can say when someone accuses you of stuffing your son like a pig:
“Fine. You don’t want me to stuff him? 我不給他吃飯!” Yep. She said that.
And of course, I did the most logical thing you can do when you’re eight and your parents are screaming at each other: I ran to the backyard, crying.
Eventually, my dad feels guilty about what he’s done and he stands under the door to the backyard holding a glass of non-fat milk. “Here,” says my dad. “Drink the milk.” No less than 10 seconds later, my mom appears in the bathroom window, which connects to the backyard. She’s mouthing a phrase to me through the window: “Don’t you DARE drink the milk.”
I’m eight years old. I look over to my dad. Drink the milk! I look over to my mom. Don’t drink the milk!
And I don’t remember what happens after that. I’ve repressed it from my memory.
You know, after typing this story out, the story sounds less humorous than it actually is. I mean hey, my parents are cool in a neurotic way, for the most part. And I’m a sane, well adjusted person, right? But every once in a while, I’ll have a major life changing decision to make and I ask myself what my parents would say. And as I close my eyes and I see their smiling faces, they would smile and tell me: “Drink the milk… don’t you DARE drink the milk.”
(Oh. And if you’re wondering what spawned this massive Ernie-flashback story, you can thank Diandra. I’ll give you a dollar if you can figure out why. Thanks, girl.)
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