"I guess I'll put this milk back in the fridge, shall I?”

As I said it I instinctively ducked - and rightly so, because I narrowly escaped being knocked unconscious by a well-aimed, well-oiled gumboot which sailed through the air, missing my skull by mere millimetres and thankfully shattering a particularly ugly purple clay seal one of our offspring had made for Mrs Ed's birthday some 16 years ago.

I will admit, there was a hint of sarcasm in my voice, but once you have 'PTMBITFed' (Yes, it looks like a swear word, but it stands for 'Put The Milk Back In The Fridge') 17 times in a day, you will understand where I'm coming from.

Please tell me you do? Because my family doesn't.

What's this fixation with milk? Well, I may have mentioned this before, but I hate waste.
“But you have so much of it,” my son, The REE will laugh, prodding my ample mid-riff , but he knows what I mean. Or at least he should do by now - after all, he's grown up with me groaning about it 276 times…. A day.

So you understand that hating waste means that the discovery of vrot (it's so much more descriptive than 'sour') milk curdles my stomach.

Let's start with some facts shall we? The first is that we now have four adults in our family. Can I have an amen on that? My daughter, aka 'Fear Factor' (she's learning to drive) is 18, and my son 'The REE' (Resident Expert on Everything) is a few days short of being 21. Hang on…. (pause for applause) Yes, dear reader thank you, you're too kind. Oh a standing ovation? Thank you so much! It is true - With your support (I know you've been cheering me on) I have managed to get him to the 'Age of Majority' without leaving him on the doorstep of a wealthy home, exchanging him for something more useful on Bid or Buy or indeed losing him in a poker match. Mind you, as I mentioned there are a few days to go……….. . (Incidentally, he too doesn't have his driver's license, but that is only because the police gentlemen responsible for such testing don't understand his exceptional level of expertise behind the wheel)

So, to recap - one home, four adults….. So why, in this household where (did I mention?) four adults reside, does only one of us have the ability to PTMBITF? An interesting psychological phenomenon…..

Second fact - Both Fear Factor AND The REE passed matric. No, please hold back on the applause this time, BECAUSE DESPITE THIS, they still cannot PTMBITF. What do they teach in biology, or home economics, or maths or science or ANYTHING these days? Even a basic understanding of History would surely empower them with the knowledge that, for centuries now, milk left outside the fridge for a length of time has, historically, gone vrot. Shouldn't that be amongst the basics? Along with twotimestwoisfour, couldn't they memorise putthedarnmilkbackinthefridge…?

Third fact - Let's look at adult number 3. Mrs Ed is quite an intelligent person. Don't let outside appearances fool you- behind that moustache lies a cunningly clever brain. How else would she be so efficient at calculating and recalculating ways to poke holes in my sanity? If I think of the accuracy in the intricate illustrations of torture chambers (of her own design) I have found lying around on bits of paper, I know I am not living with a fool of any sort.

But yet she too cannot PTMBITF. She can send a blackberry message whilst watching a murder-mystery on TV whilst reading a magazine whilst talking to her sister on the landline whilst signalling to me to get my darn feet off the couch…. But when it comes to PTMBITF after pouring some into her tea. Nope. 'Amposseeebleauh!' as the French would say (and who says I'm not tweetaalig?).

Am I being unreasonable? Is this a storm in a (black) teacup? I think not. I think that it is EXCEPTIONALLY important for my family members to at least make some effort to PTMBITF, if only to prove that they do indeed have an acceptable level of common sense.

But they just don't get it. To them it's like the old riddle of how to get the fox and the lettuce and the rabbit over the stream without anything eating anything… They just cannot grasp the complicated triangle of milk, fridge and vrotness.

Picture the scene:- The REE staggers out his bedroom at two in the afternoon because he wants cornflakes. Yes this is true. Apart from 'surf's up', the call of the cornflake is the one and only outside influence which will cause him to hit pause on the game he's playing or movie he is watching. He had a girlfriend for a while which we thought might change things, but apparently she had a big argument with the back of his head and stormed out - or at least he thinks he saw her storming out in his peripheral vision. So, back to the scene you are picturing. The REE ventures into the kitchen, dumps a calamity of Kelloggs into his bowl, retrieves a reasonably new two litre bottle of full cream from the fridge (where I put it) from which he pours on a generous lashing of the lovely stuff, and then, of course he sets the still half full bottle down on the table.

Six hours later he comes back out his room, and repeats the whole process…. Except this time the milk isn't in the fridge. It's nice and cosy and warm on the kitchen table where it can catch a nice bit of afternoon sun. He tilts the bottle but, lo and behold! Instead of the expected rush of gloriously cool liquid, a roundish glob of off-white plops out and sits amongst the top flakes, like the ugly cousin of Michelin Man.
“ARRRRGGGHHHHNNNMMMPHTEWY” The REE moans, before hollering at the top of his voice….. “MO-O-O-O-OM! THE MILK'S SOUR!”

Now this is the intriguing bit. What follows is a lengthy 'conspiracy' conversation between The REE and Mrs Ed (with Fear Factor adding in her thre'pence every now and then), on how the manufacturers of milk must surely be adding something to it to make it go sour so quickly, so that they can increase sales. The REE goes into extensive detail regarding the hormones they are feeding the cows and the toxic fertiliser they willy-nilly spray on the grass.
“Maybe it's the vapour trails behind the planes?” Fear Factor suggests.

The conversation concludes with a lot of sighing and tut tutting and 'things-aren't-like-they-used-to-be'- ing (apparently in Mrs Ed's youth, you could keep a bucket of Blossom's udder's finest next to an active volcano in mid summer and it would still stay fresh for at least a week. “But the ice age is over!” I reasoned only to feel the wrath of her right boot).

I of course stand next to the fridge listening to this increasingly vrot conversation whilst miming the apparently exceptionally-difficult-to-grasp action of opening the fridge, putting the milk in, and closing it… but it's as if I am not there at all.

So, I find myself permanently on PTMBITF duty. It is my role in life to stand watch and ensure that my family doesn't have to suffer the mental stress and physical exhaustion associated with PTMBITF, I have pledged that so long as I have a breath in my body I will bear that burden for them. And you would think that Mrs Ed at least would be grateful for this honourous sacrifice, but no. She barely even acknowledges it.

In fact it seems that all she can do is harp on and on and on about something far less significant in comparison:- Me throwing my dirty clothes on the bathroom floor, next to the laundry basket, instead of into it. She says she can't understand why I can't grasp something so simple, despite the fact that I claim to be educated. On and on and on she goes, like an African Grey with tourets.

All I can say is that I'm glad I'm not the sort to be so anal about something so trivial - Especially when there are for more IMPORTANT things in life that need my full attention, like PTMBITF.