“You got to be kidding me.”
These are the words of my father, a brave man. A man with a high-pitched voice that sounds like a rooster stroking its own throat mid-crow. A man who took me to liquor drive-thrus when I was a kid. Not for beer or wine, but for barbecue-flavored Grippo’s chips and 2-liters of Tahitian Treat. Turn to your neighbor and say, “It’s a Midwest thang.”
Anyhow, Dad would use this phrase as a response to any bit of incredible news. As in:
“Dad, I got all A’s this semester.”
--“You GOT to be kidding me.”
Or
“Dad, my foot is on fire again.
--"You GOT to be kidding me."
And
“Dad, our neighbor neuters squirrels for a living.”
--"You GOT to be kidding me."
I don’t usually like to steal people’s mojo, but I recently encountered an article that left me with only one thing to say.
“Would You Eat Breast Milk Ice Cream?” the headline read. The post featured a mother of four proudly displaying her breast shields and milk-filled bottles next to an ice cream maker. (And she’s wearing an apron, which leads me to believe there’s a poor wet nurse locked in the pantry who is missing her five minutes of shine thanks to this hungry milk nabber.)
It took all the milk in me not to finish a bag of Red Hot Grippo’s before taking even one sip of Dr. Pepper to calm the tongue-sting. Turn to your neighbor and say, “Ohio is for [junk food] lovers.”
This mother with her mysteriously aproned chest comments that she had never thought to put her own milk in smoothies or mac n cheese for her whole family to enjoy. That is, until she found out a store in London sells ice cream made from the bosom of someone’s very milky lady friend.
I know what you’re thinking, Dear Reader. That lady friend is not me. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m not above it. I would sell my milk for rand or whatever London’s currency is, but I already have a Medela hands-free pump. So I have no need for savings.
But if my thoughtful husband hadn’t upgraded me from a single electric pump to one I can hang glide with, I would certainly take on the job of London’s premier lady cow.
That is, of course, if I could get offers like Ted Williams. I would be pasted on the sides of buses, or whatever they drive in London, and I would be videotaped while I hugged my mother, waved my contract, and said, “Look, Mommy! Look! I’m the new voice of Kraft.”
And she would smile then warn, “Don’t mess this one up, Taylor. Last time you got a breast milk contract, you cracked under the pressure and your milk dried up.”
“Oh, Mommy,” I’d say. “They wanna give me a house. With freezers in every room. I can even pump and store my milk in the rooftop Jacuzzi. The Washington Wizards want to serve my milk in those orange Gatorade coolers during every home game.”
So it’s not the pumping I take issue with, my friend. It’s the eating of the pumped. That’s where I muster up my best impression of Dad’s voice, something like a baby seal sucking in helium—or maybe a sick hamster on a Ferris wheel—and say:
You GOT to be kidding me.
Now, you might be wondering where I get the paunches to judge. I’ll tell you where—I get it from the gluten-free aisle. You see, Elie Mae loves my milks. Her cheeks were made to accept and store my milks until proper swallowing has transpired. However, my milks were making her sick.
So now, even on my birthday (Happy Birfdey to me!), I am on a “no” diet. As in:
-no wheat
-no eggs
-no nuts
-no soy
-no DAIRY.
And even in this desperate state, in which Elie and I are starved of brownies containing real goo and cookies that don’t taste like water and fig paste, we have agreed that I will not drink my own milk. Like that old Weight Watchers commercial, I don’t want my daughter’s first words to be:
“Mommy, dat Elie’s milks.”
