The Observer's Blog

The Milk Brotherhood

At the time I discovered that one of my friends and a former roommate loved drinking milk, I thought he posessed some mild, isolated psychosis. When I say he loves drinking milk, I refer to a few distinct characteristics: he drinks at least 2 gallons of milk per week; when he accepts a glass of milk you offer him he shows much enthusiasm when accepting and may even tell you his latest milk consumption statistics or some other funny milk story; he shows a stark preference for one type of milk (2%, I think) and would consider drinking any other type of milk repugnant; he would prefer drinking milk to any other beverage at any time, even when it would seem not to go well with the meal. Well, recent observations have shown that other such milk-lovers exist. A fellow astronomy graduate student (whom I will also soon call "roommate") recently tried to initiate the bond of milk brotherhood when he saw me drinking milk with my lunch. I had to disappoint him by telling him it was simply the only beverage I had access to at the time, and he looked almost insulted. I look forward to more encounters with this underground culture, and perhaps I can devise some experiments to perform the next time I meet a brother of the milkhood. Perhaps there are various sects associated with goat's milk or coconut milk.