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Monday, October 30, 2006

The strawberry demon

It all started on Thursday, really. At the store. I was hungry, and you shouldn’t shop for groceries when you’re hungry, I’m completely aware of that, but it fitted into my schedule so perfectly. The store is right across the street from the station, where my buss stops. Otherwise, I’d have to go to the marked in Hellhole, which is all the way on the other side of the river. Granted, it’s not far, and it’s not as if I’d have to swim across, or anything, but still… It would have been Out Of My Way. That’s right: with capital letters.

So there I was, drifting up and down between the isles, with my stomach making all sorts of suggestions about what I should put in my little, blue basket. Most of which, I ignored.

All of a sudden, something caught my eye. It wasn’t prominently placed in any way, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that it was bright pink and placed right in between several large bags of white stuff, I probably wouldn’t have noticed it at all.

It was strawberry milk powder.

Pensive, I picked it up. After having looked at it for a while, studied both sides of the packet and weighed it in my hand, I put it in my shopping basket along with the eggs, bread and a carton of milk.

Half and hour later I was home, feeling completely exhausted. It had already started to get dark outside. Wanting to relax, I stuck a DVD into the machine and made myself a tall glass of strawberry milk. It was pink, and although I’m not a huge fan of pink, it looked nice. And it tasted nice. And then I drank more. And more. And by Friday night, the milk was gone… But there was still more powder left. Lots of it. Potential strawberry goodness just waiting to be completed.

On Saturday, it started to snow. “I don’t want to go to the store today,” I though. After all, the only thing that I was out of, was milk. But at the same time, there was a little, nagging voice inside my head. That voice wanted more of the strawberry stuff. Eventually, I gave in. By then, the snowflakes from earlier that morning, had grown and were now more balls then they were flakes.

I put on boots, my coat, a scarf and my new gloves and headed towards the bridge, while my mind was playing with pictures of pink liquid in tall glasses. Every time I walked underneath a tree or a lamppost, they would drop cold, wet lumps of snow on my head, but I just kept right on walking. Why? Because I had a goal, dammit.

Over the weekend I gobbled up enough milk to dry up a full-grown cow.

Today I think I’m over the worst of it. A slight feeling of nausea has begun to tickle the back of my throat when I look at that brightly coloured pink packet in my cupboard. I will beat this demon. Yes, I will.



Strawberry pic by Social Advances for Flickr.com
Snowflake pic by Captpiper for Flickr.com

7 comments:

Too_Lively said...

Strawberry milk is very good. I haven't had a glass in many years. Hmmmm, I may have to remedy that.

Jazz said...

Well, I guess this whole pink milk thing is ok since "cause as long as it's pink, nobody'll know it's me." Or so you say.

choochoo said...

Lively - You can have what's rest of mine, if you want. I don't mind.

Jazz - yeah, but that was kinda before the picture came up... Now, I don't think it helps that much, really

Jocelyn said...

Because I live in the world of All Things Kid, I will admit to having strawberry milk in the cupboard. But now that you're nauseous about the stuff, maybe you need to move onto the vanilla milk powder, which is also nummy but doesn't have the pink color. This addiction of yours has many unexplored facets. Btw, I love this story of yours.

choochoo said...

Ooooh, vanilla... *wide eyed*
That sounds like something I could definitly get addicted to...

Tim Rice said...

Ah, when I was a kid, strawberry milk was a real treat even though it was available just about every day. But, now, I haven't had it for years. It just sounds too sweet and sugary.

But I love real strawberries blended together with milk, yougurt, an egg, and a banana for an energizing cold beverage.

choochoo said...

Tim - I'm not to crazy about strawberries in and by themselves, but I like them when they're blended with stuff.