15th
September 2012
Today
my best friend Michael came round to play. He arrived at 2 o'clock
and we frolicked in the garden for hours until we became exceedingly
thirsty and had to retire to the kitchen for a cool glass of milk.
Feeling sufficiently refreshed, Michael put his finger in his glass
of milk and flicked a speck of the milky liquid in my face. In
retaliation and with a demeanour of mock outrage I took a sip of
milk, kept it in my mouth and spurted out a jet of milk like a
fountain into his eyes. Michael, laughing but also blinded by the
milk, took his glass in his hand and poured it over my head, at which
point I kindly returned the gesture. Things quickly started to get
out of hand. “That's it...” said Michael forebodingly, and he
disappeared into the garden. Moments later he came back with two
large water pistols. “Milk fight!” he yelled. I grinned back at
him.
Filling
the pistols with milk was a laborious task and in retrospect the
spontaneity of our wacky antics did suffer slightly. After a quarter
of an hour was spent filling the pistols I was starting to reconsider
how I had decided to spend my day, but we had two great pistols
filled with milk now and it seemed a shame to let them go to waste.
Michael
started off our skirmish with a milky jet straight into my chest and
dived behind the sofa to take cover. I took refuge on the staircase
and waited for his head to pop out before shooting the creamy liquid
into his temple. We carried on in this vein for about 10 minutes
before abandoning these conservative measures in favour of more
aggressive tactics. We jumped out from our defensive positions and
pumped our milky guns until all the milk was drained and the living
room was drenched in milk.
A
wry smile passed between us. We knew that there was only one way to
settle this battle: hand-to-hand combat. In fits of giggles we
attempted to wrestle each other to the floor, exchanging a series of
head locks and half nelsons. Once we were horizontal we gave up the
wrestling in favour of violent tickling, before we collapsed on the
milk-soaked carpet, drenched from head to toe in milk and suffering
with paroxysms of hilarity.
The
two of us laughed until the cows came home.
Then
all of a sudden things became very serious.
*
The
cows were not best pleased to witness such a wanton waste of milk.
“What
the fucking shit, Dave?” said Martin. “Have you been using our
milk for your cunting milk fights again? Do you have any idea how
long it takes to squeeze that much milk from my fucking udders?”
Linda's
tone was that of disappointment rather than anger: “the whole
living room is ruined. You must have wasted at least a dozen pints of
milk this time David. I'm really upset.” I tried to apologise but
she cut me off: “I can't even talk to you right now. I feel so
used.”
Martin
was unrelenting in his abuse. He called me the foulest names, and
just when I felt ready to burst with guilt he took off his large
metal bell from around his neck and proceeded to beat me with it. The
steel chimed against my ribs like a clock striking ten, all the while
Michael cowered in fear, too afraid to speak out.
Eventually
the beating ceased and I was left to crawl upstairs into my room
alone, where I passed out on the bed.
*
I
felt awful about what Michael and I had done. We had completely taken
Martin and Linda for granted and treated their milk like tap-water.
Their teats were not taps and I needed to remember that. There was a
knock at my door; it was Martin and Linda. I was terrified; I didn't
want another beating, be it verbal or at the hands of a steel cowbell
again.
“David...”
they started.
I
started to apologise and explain that it would never happen again but
they stopped me in my tracks.
“We
know David. We overreacted, and for that we too are sorry. So sorry
in fact that we made you a little something...”
I
knew what this meant. I started to grin in disbelief.
“That's
right: milkshakes!”
And
the three of us raised a toast to the joys of milk and laughed about
our day.
