Stealing Away With A Gallon Of Milk

Grandmother did it again.  A few weeks ago, she went crazy at Sam's Club and bought all this food in bulk.  Most egregiously, she purchased two huge gallons of whole milk.  None of us drink whole milk anymore.  I mean, Father and I would.  But we know it's full of fat, and even though it tastes great, I've decided to go down to 2%.  Father will drink anything.

When I told her this, Grandmother said she didn't think too much of it.  Never mind that the kind of milk is color-coded; the red caps indicate whole, and hopefully it does everywhere.  But Grandmother, being both forgetful and not being all that observant in the first place, ignored it.  "We'll drink it," she said, before putting both gallons in the refrigerator.

But we didn't.  Grandmother tapped the first one, but I haven't been drinking it because I bought a half-gallon of 2% and I'm still not done with that one, three weeks after I bought it.  Buying that milk was a waste, a huge fucking waste, and she's done this before and it makes my skin crawl.

Seeing as there was still one unopened gallon of whole milk and an expiration date that must've been fast approaching, late last week I decided to donate it.  I wanted to do it the week before, but 1) I didn't have time and 2) right when I could grab the gallon out of the fridge, Grandmother would be there watching me.  Now, this is someone who let My Father take away all the bags of clothes she accumulated and stored in my sister's former bedroom and didn't do anything about it.  Would she get pissed at me if I just walked away with a gallon of milk she bought right in front of her eyes?  No.  But I would still feel weird.

What finally convinced me to do it was the future prospect of both of my jobs taking up all of my time.  That day was probably the last day I was able to do it, because of the time I had and because it may have been the last day where going to the donation site was on the way to "work" at the U.  I didn't care if Grandmother saw me, I was going to give this milk away.

Until I did care if Grandmother saw me.  This was well past the noon hour, but if I remember correctly, she had just finished her lunch.  She does this thing where she hovers around me, trying to engage me in conversation, but I had to leave, so she kind of wandered back into her bedroom.

That gave me time to dive into the fridge and get the milk.  But she didn't get into her bed to start watching her Chinese DVD's; no, I heard her shuffling footsteps and I immediately slammed the refrigerator door.  Oh, fuck it, I thought, I have to leave.

But ... one more chance.  The milk's just going to waste in there.  I had brought, I think, my laptop with me, so I had an excuse to just throw that in the car and come back in, for some reason.  Meanwhile, Grandmother didn't saunter back out to the kitchen but instead went to the bathroom to pee or something.  Phew!  That gave me the chance I needed.  While the bathroom door was mostly closed (we stopped caring about closing doors, especially bathroom ones, a long time ago), I went back to the fridge, opened it, took out the virgin gallon from the bottom, and out I went.

Ah, that felt good.  But after work later that evening, I opened up the fridge to find something to eat, and I saw a gallon of skim milk at the bottom, from where I took the whole milk from.  And then I had this thought of Grandmother opening the refrigerator, looking down, thinking, "What the ... ?" feeling panicked because she was confused, and then thinking that the gallon she thought was down there was the skim milk jug she put up top, and because it's easier for her to carry, she brought down that jug from the top shelf.  She might be wondering to this day, "I swear there was a gallon of milk down there."

I wish I had the heart to tell her I took it.  I would then, uh, lecture -- okay, yell at -- her about buying shit we won't drink.  Honesty's always the best policy.  But it's been a week.  Maybe she forgot already.  And weeks after this is over, she'll go to Sam's Club and once again buy more stuff we won't drink.  And I'll surreptitiously try and take it from under her nose again.