So Says The Mouse In My Hair

The Greenville Collection Part 1: Support Group

Support Group

Hi. My name is Sarah and for six years I drank milk out of a bag.

"Hi, Sarah."

You know, it really feels good to get that out in the open. I mean, I always thought I was the only one. OK, not the only one only one. I mean everyone in my school had to do it too. But you go out into the world and suddenly you’re surrounded by people who got to have cartons. But I didn’t know about you guys. I thought it was just my school because they did stupid things like that. You know, people ask me, "what’s it like going to school in Greenville?" And I’ll give them one of those don’t-even-get-me-started looks and say, "well, I graduated with nineteen other people and we drank milk out of bags at lunch." And they give me that what-freaky-kind-of-place-did-you-grow-up look and I go, "I know." And you guys probably all know what that feels like, right?

A couple nods.

"I never tell anyone at all. I’ve found a place in the world now. I don’t want them to know things like that about my past."

It’s just worse for us. I mean, hot lunches are psychologically damaging for everybody, but there’s something about those sacks, maybe it’s the way they sag around your hand and all the condensation gets on your fingers, that just screams onset of depression. You can feel it in the school everywhere.

"This is the first time I've thought about it that way, but it makes sense. I mean we’d blame the administration or the faculty or the bars on the windows. [note to reader: there weren't actually bars on the windows] I think it can all be traced back to the milk bags. They’re just so droopy, everyday, like the superintendent’s laughing at us."

"No way out, no way out. Lunch was the worst part of my day."

But they do have their good side. They’re great for a laugh. You guys must have played with them too, aiming them at other people’s trays.

"Who can write their name in the shepherd’s pie?"

"For us girls it was a great way to cope with penis envy. Not me personally, but I had some friends who took out their Freudian aggression at the lunch table."

I remember someone put one in my backpack once, did that ever happen to you? Yeah, none of my books would close right for the rest of the semester.

"Boys used to throw them at me and yell about how I needed implants."

"I think the kid that sat behind me right after lunch liked to put one in my seat right before I sat down. I spent so much of fifth period in the bathroom that the teacher must have thought I had a bladder infection."

And remember the chocolate ones? And all the brown stuff would collect down at the bottom and since the plastic was clear, you could see it all in it’s horrific picture? No, that’s not really a good word, but you get my point.

"I couldn’t even drink those. It reminded me too much of dirt."

Of course there was drinking it. It was never honestly cold.

"Yeah it always just a luke cold. I could never stand that."

And the bag would flatten when I sucked and the milk would squeeze into little streams and tributaries heading towards the straw. And when the milk was almost gone the bubbles would flow and no matter how hard I tried, I could never get the bag to be 100% flat. I always felt like such a failure.

"Did any of you ever blow it up again and stick the straw through the other side so you’d have a balloon?"

"I saw a kid do that once, but then he added a hot dog onto the other end and went around waving it in people’s faces and screaming. I still can’t eat a hotdog unless it’s blistered and black and has lots of condiments."

And the straws, remember the straws? How they were pointy on one end? And trying to decide where to stab it? I usually went straight down the middle.

"My friends used to pick on me because I always put the straw in the same place, the seam at the top, an inch over from the right hand corner. I still don’t really know why."

"I was a corner kid."

And if you got the straw in just the right place then you could push the straw all the way into the bag and it wouldn’t come out the other side. My straws were red, Yours too?

"Yup."

"Mine were clear."

Then sometimes I’d just forget to pick up a straw, so I’d bite a corner off the plastic and tip it upside down and drink it mouth to mouth with the bag.

"I had to do that too. I always forgot something at lunch, a fork or a napkin or a straw. The straw was the worst one though."

It was like sucking on an udder. A humiliation, even if it’s only in my head, from which I’ll probably never fully recover.

Talk about humiliating though, all those other people out there? It’s a clear cut example of the two types of people, you know?

"And the carton people have no idea how to picture or conceive of the things we’ve been through. I’ve never seen one that understood or reacted well when they found out about my bags."

I remember telling my dad about the bags once. He didn’t even believe me. So I brought one home from school one day. At lunch I slipped it in my backpack and it waited there until seventh period was over and it walked home with me. Picture the bag of milk sitting there, touching my pencils and my calculator and my ruler, from noon until I got home at 3. The terrible shape it must have been in!

"And room temperature too, I’m so sorry."

I know we can’t blame all the world’s problems on bagged milk, but it’s an acceptable excuse for me. What’s wrong with you? Oh, I drank milk out of a bag for six years.

"It’s always worked for me."

posted by Sarah Eliza @ 4:45 PM