After a few years of this, you can imagine the jolt of nausea nostalgia I felt upon returning to my childhood home this week for a visit and rooting through the refrigerator for a drink for my three-year-old.
“I need to go to the grocery to get some milk for Punky,” I said a day or so after we’d arrived.
“We have some in the fridge,” my dad replied.
“Yeah, but it expired a week and a half ago.”
“It’s still fine, though,” he insisted. “Taste it.”
I paused for a moment, considering. Maybe he was right. Maybe the milk was absolutely fine.
Then again, maybe he was wrong and Punky would end up turning green and projectile vomiting that milk all over my new Marc Jacobs bag.
“I need to go to the grocery,” I said again.
It was a bit of an awkward moment, but you know, I’ve found that life without Tums can be a beautiful, beautiful thing.
