9 March 1999: Two Straws

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It's hard for me to tell a story without every unnecessary detail of background. One of CLH's favorite stories about me is when both came home from school and I had gossip to relate. She said I could tell her while I gave her a backrub, and I massaged her for two hours, she says. I really can't see that it was that long, but it was pretty long.

One of my favorite stories about her happened when we came home for Christmas in 1986, my freshling and her senior year at school. Our mother, pleased to have us back and welcoming us in her home, had only skim milk in the house (and the lamps in our rooms were not merely switched off but unplugged). The usual.

The Torino still worked and CLH and I scarpered for Christas plunder. On the way home from the mall, we passed a tiny little market and CLH abruptly twisted the wheel and pulled up short in its puny lot. "We need milk," CLH remembered.

CLH, the elder, drove the car; I, the younger, ran the errands. I scurried into the general store. The other brother Darryl, the circumference of a latter-day Orson Welles, staffed the counter upon which I set the whole milk. "Gallon of milk," I stated the obvious in my John Wayne voice, "and two straws." He rang up my purchase and handed me two straws, giving me an odd look.

I slid into the bench seat and plunked down the gallon jug, ripping its cap off. Meanwhile CLH ripped open the straws. We leaned in for the kill, sucking up the white substance like we were snorting cocaine.

Ah, milk! Real, whole milk; cold, rich, thick bliss. Our mother, responsible for our insatiable appetite for the stuff, had in her hospitable way tried to poison us with white-dyed water. We were together, CLH and I, sisters home from school with a trunkful of presents and a carful of milk. Suddenly we were laughing too hard to hold our straws, which disappeared into the dairy depths.

We lost it completely, shaking in our seats. I struggled out of the car, staggered into the store, and asked the clerk, who moved away from the door where he'd been watching, for two more straws. This time he watched us until we'd safely driven away.

Over the next few days as we drained the jug, the evidence of frivolity came to light. BJW peered into the refrigerator one evening and asked, "What's wrong with that milk you bought?" We had to explain the concept of straws to her, since her sense of fun has been so tragically retarded.

Years later, on my wedding day, CLH showed up at ground zero and handed me a container of milk and two straws.

Did that have extraneous detail?

 

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