I learned early in life not to drink the milk. I suppose I was about six years old, I think. Oh, I remember every detail of that fateful corner where I knelt and learned the true nature of the world; the flying cars, the fifty foot tall people, the little store with the nickel vending machine and the most lethal and wonderful pen knife enclosed in its protective bubble. I fed that machine many nickels trying to get that pen knife, but it was not to be. Yes, every detail was burned into my six year old brain with perfect clarity.

I had been on my way to school, first grade. I was running along clutching my Chitty Chitty Bang Bang lunch box, blissful in my knowledge I would not be late for morning graham crackers. And then, the very sidewalk heaved up and caught my foot. I fell and my knees once again knew that terrible pain I was so familiar with. It was very common back then for various objects to throw themselves in my path; I always had scrapped knees. Well, I didn’t cry. I was used to it. And my trousers received no additional damage, as the knees were long since gone on some previous assault on my person.

No, I was fine. But not so my Chitty Chitty Bang Bang lunch box, for it had flown from my hands and the contents were now scattered across the ground. I sighed and crawled around collecting my lunch; the peanut butter sandwich… oh, the wonderful peanut butter sandwich. To this very day I continue to search antique stores looking for a lunch box that still holds that wondrous scent of peanut butter sandwiches. Back in those days the entire planet’s population of children hadn’t yet succumbed to some strange mass allergy to peanuts. I do remember a friend once that said she was allergic to peanuts. But, in all the years we sat next to each other and ate our lunches, she never once spontaneously exploded from being in close proximity to my peanut butter sandwiches.

So, anyway, I collected my lunch and stuffed it back into my lunch box, but my thermos had rolled away and now rested slightly askew on the curb. I stared at that thermos for a long time, for I knew something had changed. I felt a cold wind across my shoulders. I did not know then, but I know now that Darwin and the Specter of Death hovered over my shoulders, breathing their cold breath on my neck. I worked up my courage and retrieved the thermos, then slowly opened it. I peered inside and found my milk had magically changed. My milk was sparkly. What fantastic magic was this? I lifted the thermos, wanting a sip of that new sparkly milk. But, as the thermos was nearly to my lips, I heard whispering. Something calling to me, an instinct.

Well, I can tell you, I never drank the milk. There were other occasions when my milk turned sparkly, but I always resisted the lure of the sparkly milk. Some instinct deep inside me said the milk was the Grim Reapers poison. In time I suppose the Reaper realized I would never fall for whatever trick he was trying with the milk; it is a mystery I’ll never know, but I never drank the milk. I even remember when the Reaper and Darwin stopped trying to tempt me with sparkly milk; that was the year I got Lawn Darts for Christmas.

In real life I’m in extreme pain when I drink milk. But that’s the boring side of the story so let’s skip it. The grim reaper and Darwin had nothing to do with it. Sparkles come from fairies and the wee folk who were squashed when your lunch unceremoniously landed on them. The fairy dust from their wings penetrated whatever vessel humans concocted to keep the contents safe and stayed there – waiting for you to drink it. If you had been that brave enough – enlightenment would have followed, and you would have noticed them, lying there in pain and anguish, squashed, flattened.

But you didn’t. And now you’ll never know, for sure. And how many opportunities did they give you thereafter to make amends and you rejected all of them. They give up eventually, on some people. On others, well did I mention that I’m in extreme pain if I drink milk or eat ice cream?