I have gone to the grocery store and purchased a quart of milk so many times during the course of my life that it would take me quite a while to add all those times up.
When I was around eight years old, my mother would give me a quarter and I would walk down to the Capuchino Food Mart, buy some milk and then walk back home. We lived on Park Blvd in Millbrae and the Food Mart was five blocks away. And my mother would always let me use the change to buy a piece of Fleer's Double Bubble.
Nowadays I just walk across the street to the Berkeley Bowl and buy my milk there. I've lived next to the Bowl for the last 28 years. I know every aisle layout by heart. I know all the clerks. And, hopefully, I will be buying a quart of milk there once or twice a week for the NEXT 28 years.
Excuse me?
"At the recent presidential primary debate in Cleveland between Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama, they talked about healthcare and fair campaign practices and being stalwart friends of Israel and NAFTA and the new Bush-McCain clone. But neither one of the debaters mentioned milk."
Milk? Huh? What were they supposed to do? Debate the merits of low-fat milk vs. fat-free?
"Let's take a closer look at that quart. What does the future hold for milk?"
Cheerios and oatmeal?
"First of all, what about the grass that cows eat? Does it need to be pollinated in order to re-seed? And if so, will it need to be pollinated by bees? Bees are in big trouble right now because of insecticides and paracites and all the bees in North America may be dead in a few years. That means that we will no longer be able to buy any fruits or vegetables that are bee-pollinated."
But grass is wind-pollinated. I think.
"Now let's talk about the weather changes coming up. Can you walk to the store to buy that quart of milk when there is five feet of snow on the ground? Or will your store still get supplied with milk during a tornado? Or can they get cows to produce milk in 145-degree heat?"
So you put the cows in a barn with air-conditioning and central heating.
"And where is the gas and electricity going to come from to run the A/C?"
The Middle East?
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