Tempest in a Milk Carton

The Senior Lunch today down at the Center is roast pork, mashed potatoes, diced beets, and a large white fluffy dinner roll with butter. And a side of applesauce.

They serve it cafeteria style, so I take my plate, grab 2 cartons of 1 percent milk, and head over to the condiment table for some hot sauce.

And there I collide with one of the cranks that infest the Senior Center.

A scruffy old man, in patched overalls, with a threadbare DEKALB seed cap wedged firmly on his head, is pouring ketchup ove his beets. He says:

"Hey, you can't have two milks. You're only supposed to have one."

This is news to me. I always take two.

"Who says?" I ask politely.

"You're supposed to take one, not two." he repeats, his eyes ablaze with the unholy zeal of the stickler.

I decide that today is not the day I will be kind to idiots, so I silently turn my back on him to go to my table. He follows me.

"You better put that other milk back so's there's enough fer everbody" he grates through his long yellow teeth.

"Ah, go peddle your papers" I tell him. I have always wanted to use that phrase since hearing Victor Mature snarl it in a gangster movie.

He stands unmoving above me as I eat. Like a senile obelisk.

He finally whirls and strides away. I am left in peace, but not for long. He comes back with the Senior Lunch supervisor, an earnest young man with rimless glasses and a crew cut.

The supervisor is plainly all at sea, since I am obviously not doing anything upsetting or immoral.

"You see what I mean?" says DEKALB in triumph.

"Is there a problem?" the supervisor asks no one in particular.

I continue to eat my lunch, dipping my roast pork into the applesauce -- something I learned to do when I lived in Florida.

At this, DEKALB snorts and shakes his head in disgust, then takes his tray over to another table, where he slams it down -- startling an old woman in a flowered nightie dozing over a Nora Roberts novel.

Now the supervisor, as is the wont of supervisors worldwide and forever, decides he'd better earn his keep by annoying someone. And that someone is me.

"Just don't let it happen again" he tells me, rather uncertainly.

Now maybe he means it as a mild joke, a way to smooth over a rough patch in the day's events. But I choose not to take it that way.

I fix him with a beady eye -- I practice piercing looks in the mirror every morning, so I'm pretty effective. And I say, deadpan, "Don't let WHAT happen again?"

 At this, the supervisor pretends to hear his name being called, gives me a friendly bob of the head, and skitters away.

I finish my lunch, including both cartons of milk. The pork is a bit dry, but dipping it in the apple sauce helps. Busing my tray, I notice several cartons of milk left out on the condiment table, so I ask one of the nice lunch ladies about it.

"Oh" she says, "there's always some milk left over after lunch. Take 'em if you want -- otherwise we just have to throw them out."