Fridays were very long days... which included some thumps on the head (vomit of course) redemption, love and a scary trip to the "Albino Camp."
Thank goodness we didn't have to push cars this morning, but speaking of Dr. Frankenstein...I think its time to share about another Dahlin morning ritual... i.e. MILK WARS!
With a billion kids in our house, it would have been a lot cheaper if we ran on gasoline instead of milk. Gas was about 32 cents a gallon, while milk, at about a buck a gallon, was like three times that. This was back in the day when milkmen worn uniforms and drove special trucks and delivered milk to your front door.
Our milkman came just about every other day, but the 60 bottles of milk never seemed to make it until the next time he had to maneuver through the junk on the porch to take away the empty bottles and to leave the next fresh batch of liquid white gold (I hope you realize that 60 bottles was an exaggeration). Part of the reason is that our milk spoiled especially with that amount of consumption was that: 1) The older boys never used cups, they just drank straight from bottles - Yep... lips and slobber and germs and canker sores and all - YUCK! 2) They opened new bottles indiscriminately and chugged it down leaving half empty bottles completely untouched. 3) Was that no one wanted to drink after Knut (pseudonym to protect the guilty), who used to wear a retainer and still had bad breath. 4) A lot of stuff got hidden and forgotten about with all the stuff crammed in our fridge 5) I think the spoiled food in the refrigerator help to accelerated the milk on to its way of becoming sour cottage cheese. That meant with all bottle jostling and juggling and rim licking a lot of milk ended up being spoiled and the boys decided to used me as their taste-test dummy. They forced me to try a sip from each bottle knowing that if I didn't gag or throw up then they knew the milk passed the test.
Well, my dad was an early riser and got up before the crack of dawn in order to experiment in his evil laboratory.
This is TRUE. He had purchased a 50 pound sack of powdered milk that was taller than me, which sat behind the kitchen door and turned into concrete crawling with bull-weevils.
The older boys had refused to drink anything that was synthesized from powered milk... it was WAR!
Dad would have to chisel the solid block of ancient power with a jack hammer and mix it in his laboratory... always experimenting in ways he thought he could fool the milk snobs.
My poor dad felt using that powder he had invested in was the only way he could stay out of the poor house and worked hard every morning to fool the fools.
While the Lennons and Blasers and normal families got to eat box cereal...we had to eat oatmeal, Cream-of-Wheat or Malt-O-Meal, which only compounded things even more.
"Good for you Mrs. Lennon. Good for you."
That was an ad campaign for Kelloggs... Special K
We, however, had to deal with my dad's cunning Milk Wars experimentation in addition to picking meal worms out of our oatmeal cereal. Gross!
"Not good for you Wolf Pack! Not good for you!"
Kurt came down stairs with the gloom news that another rattlesnake had escaped from the third floor cages in the boys room and made me go up to the roof to put up the yellow and green warning flag for the neighborhood - that read, "Don't tread on me."
I picked the boiled carcasses of meal-worm larvae out of my cereal, endured the Mad Scientist's milk concoction, managed to throw-up only one time and left for school. With the Italian family screaming in loud conversation and Mrs. Steadman peering through the blinds fearfully at the flag, I saluted the statue of the Blessing Virgin Mary (that was enshrined in the Lennon's great big picture window), then rounded the corner as I whistled my way to Saint Marks anticipating my Friday encounter with Irene.
Good Morning Harding Avenue.
I guess a "Good Morning" is relative. For some it means waking up to 6 different choices of favorite boxed cereal, while for for others- it means waking up. For Markie D it meant surviving the MILK WARS, meal worms, and a couple clunks on the head... in a life which was more like a reality show starring the Wolf Pack!
Until later Russia, Canada, Romania, Germany, Japan, South Korea, UK, France, Italy, Netherlands, and the rest of God's glorious diversity that makes humanity so special. Jag alskar du.
