So Long and Thanks for All the Milk
Having gone home on a whim last weekend, I awoke in my teenage bedroom, uncertain at first of whether or not I was waking up in 1997, with acne and a crush on some kid in my drama class.

Thankfully, that was not the case.

I woke up, twenty-seven years old, clad in a plaid flannel nightgown that my grandmother had given me the Christmas before she passed away, pairing it with my sister's fleece sleep-pants. The pants are polluted with pictures of Scottie dogs in colors that in no way match the uneven plaid of my nightshirt and because I like to sport no fewer than three mismatching patterns at all times, I reach for my younger sister's robe, which features unattractive silhouettes of deer, some of which (for whatever reason) are upside down. I am wearing socks slippers inside regular slippers because my mother is going through menopause ("Is it hot in here or is it hot in here?" she asks) and insists upon keeping the house thermostat hovering near 30 degrees. Glancing in the mirror I notice that the rim of my nose is chapped and my hair feels as though it may or may not have fallen into the deep fryer at White Castle. I would never in a million years venture outside like this.

Wiping sleep from my eyes I gaze at a blurry version (I have not yet put in my contacts) of a person who has abandoned any dreams and goals for the future-- who decided to forgo college to stay home and nurture her sea monkeys-- the sort of person who has never left the yard except to get the mail and who forms very definite patterns and habits and will tear out patches of her hair if she does not have her Honey Smacks at exactly 8:39, or will show her mother she doesn't like something by threatening to hold her breath until she passes out. There is something about coming home-- as if returning to the nest meant returning to an actual nest, in which the only things that matter are being fed and being comforted and encouraged to grow.

I walk into my parent's room where my father is sitting at his roll-top desk, which is neatly littered with short motivational quotes and pictures of my mother and of myself and my sisters. My father looks up as I slump toward him-- three layers of flannel with the dramatic imprint of folded sheets still etched into my face. I look, to anyone else in the world, like an Alaskan burn victim from the early nineties who has never used soap. I can think of my appearance with nothing but disappointment. He puts his pen down and smiles, turning in his chair to face me.

"Good morning!" he says.

"Good morning."

"Did you sleep well? Are you warm enough?" He asks this last question without a trace of irony. If I tell him that no, I am not warm enough, he will get his wool robe from the bathroom and place it over my sister's robe with the upside-down deer.

"I didn't realize how tired I was," I tell him.

"Long week?"

"Yes," I say. He nods. My father is smiling in the way he smiles when he is very excited about something.

"Well, I can't tell you how happy I am that you didn't wake up until just now," he says, grinning. "I just did my errands and we didn't have milk in the house and I kept thinking of you waking up and going to the fridge for milk and not finding any." He pauses for a moment, as if this scene were accepted as one of the many horrific tragedies of our times and society-- daughters going to their parents refrigerators only to find them devoid of milk. Children forced to get their calcium through yogurt or cheese or (god-forbid) the foul-smelling calcium tablets my mother keeps in a jar on the lazy susan.
"Oh," I think, "the humanity."


"So whenever you're ready to have breakfast," he continues, "there's a half-gallon of milk in the fridge. Have as much or as little as you like."

"Thank you," I tell him.

"You're welcome," he says.

I smile at the gesture. Not that I wish to be painted as a tyrannical offspring whose every wish is foreseen and granted-- a great many of my wishes (such as my wish that we turn the thermostat up to, oh, I don't know, 50?) go unfulfilled. But it is nice to have someone looking after you sometimes.
This is one of two obsessive things my father does for me like clockwork.

Thing 1.) He will go out of his way to keep milk in the house when he knows I am coming home.

Thing 2.) When I will be riding with him in the car he will put in the Rolling Stones CD set to the song, "You Can't Always Get What You Want" (track 6 on the Greatest Hits) because he knows that I enjoy it. And he will pretend that he has forgotten what CD he has left in the player and go, "Oh, let me just see what I left in here," and will turn it on, watching the large digital '6' appear on the screen as Mick Jagger's voice leaks out of the speaker, quietly at first, then with a gusto almost matching my father's.


"I have to take a shower before breakfast," I tell him, the imprint on my face slowly beginning to fade. "I might take one a little longer than normal today, just to enjoy it."

My father smiles at this as if it is a concept he has always secretly embraced but has never before shared.

"You know," he says, as if admitting a scandalous secret, "There are days I've done that. I'm, what-- 61?" I nod affirmatively. "I'm 61 years old," he says, "and between work and the commute I'm still putting in 12 to 15 hour days."
He pauses. "And I'm not complaining about that," he emphasizes, "but it takes me all of one minute to take a shower and I'm done. It's a completely functional act for me. But there are days when I'll just stand in there for an extra two, three minutes, for no reason at all. I'll just stand there with the really hot water and all the steam coming up-- and the heat is just so great and--" he laughs to himself briefly, "and I almost feel gluttonous for it. Thinking, 'here I am with so much to do and I'm just standing in the shower for no reason.'"

"If it makes you feel any better," I offer, "I am not 61, and I can easily spend five additional minutes standing in the shower with no gluttonous repercussions.

"I think a lot of it is just not being able to take care of things when I'm in there," he says. "When I get out of the shower-- and I actually think like this," he stresses, "I come out nervous as hell, thinking, 'I hope nothing goes wrong right at this exact moment because I just got out of the shower and I can't handle emergencies before I'm dressed.' And the moment I relax," he says, "is actually the exact moment I button my pants. I have this feeling like, 'Ok. Whatever happens from this point on will be all right because I'm wearing pants.' The house could catch on fire, we could hear gunshots, someone could have a medical emergency, but I'm ok because I have on pants. I can handle things in pants. When I was younger it used to be pants and shoes, but now my feet are old and pretty calloused, so I feel like I can handle things with just pants."

I nod, trying to look wise and understanding in my fourteen layers of sleepwear and my father smiles, happy to have come clean about his trouser-dependency.

"Does that make any sense?" he asks.

"It does," I admit.

"So you're going to take a shower-- which will hopefully be both relaxing and functional?"

"I am," I tell him.

"With no guilt or feelings of gluttony about its length?"

"None," I promise.

"And would you let me know when you're having breakfast so I can join you? And give me an idea of what time you'll need a ride to the train station?"

"Yes," I say. And my father, kissing me on the cheek, goes back to work.

Shuffling away, I walk into the bathroom to take a shower. Peeling off the ridiculous blanket-like layers I see my skin and am reminded once again that I am a normal human being with an apartment and a job. I do not always wear two pairs of slippers, one on top of the other, and am fully capable of meeting responsibilities and occasionally paying bills on time. I linger in the shower for a few minutes longer than necessary and dress myself cautiously, pulling on and enjoying the empowerment of my pants. I walk out of the bathroom, fully dressed in a button down shirt and sweater. I wear a hat because, despite the fact that I am dressing like a responsible adult, it is still 30 degrees in the house. But it is a nice hat. My hair is clean and my nose is no longer chapped.

I walk to the refrigerator where I pull out a fresh half gallon of milk and sit down to eat two consecutive bowls of cheerios. My father lowers himself into a chair in the way older people are prone to do-- a mixture of their handling their own bodies as if marked, "Fragile, Handle with Care," while at the same time wanting to drop themselves there with abandon, giving in to the unforgiving pull of gravity.

"Are you enjoying your milk?" he asks. I inform him that yes, I always enjoy the milk a little more when I am at home. I drink enormous glassfulls of it, feeling slightly gluttonous about the luxury of having someone keeping the house stocked with milk, so that I might drink it with abandon. (I do have somewhat of a love affair with milk, to the point where I had a slight crush on Howard Hughes in "The Aviator" because of all the milk he drank).

"And you'll let me know when we have to go to the train station?" my father asks, following up again.

I nod. And as I sit in the car later that night on the way to the train, enjoying the perks of a middle-class station wagon (heat! leg room! cupholders!) my father asks if I'd care to listen to a CD.

"Just whatever's in there?" I ask.

"Whatever's in there," he says.

And hitting 'power' I see the enormous 6 materialize on the screen of his CD player. Mick Jagger, quietly at first, reminds me that I can't always get what I want.

"So how often, roughly, will I get what I want?" I ask.

"It depends what you want," Mick Jagger answers, truthfully.

"Milk," I say. "And hot showers."

"Ok," he says, "You can't always get what you want, but there's a better chance of it happening frequently if you want things like milk and hot showers."

"And to be able to take on the world," I add. Mick Jagger frowns, pursing his squid-like lips.

"You'll need pants for that," he says. "Are you ready for that sort of responsibility?"

"I think so," I tell him, as we approach the train station.

Nodding to myself, I am fairly sure that I am.