And so it begins...

If you are one of the few that haven't been the lucky recipient of one of my stories, then the following few paragraphs are mostly for you, with a bit leftover for the ones that have heard them, since one telling is never enough, or so I'm told.

I had hum'ed and haw'ed for nearly five whole minutes over the title of this blog - or as I will rename it, my unpersonal diary - until finally settling on "Milk", having already come in at least second place to my first pick, "Big People Little World." However, with another 30 seconds of deep and debilitating thought, I realized that that title did not, after all, reflect my individuality as much as I would have liked, and silently sent thanks to the brilliant person who had clearly needed to use it in written context more badly than I did. So now I have a title that is the literary equivalent to a piece of modern art - no one understands it, but everyone pretends they do.

In order to negate unnecessary development of fine lines and wrinkles, which could inevitably lead further on to a severe case of botox here and there, I will explain why in fact I did not pick from the renaissance, classical, or post-modernist periods.

Having discontentedly lived in Edmonton for nearly 4 months, I had come to terms with the many facts that come with adapting to both a foreign environment and the smell of the Albertan capital's downtown core. Firstly, under no circumstances should I pick up hitchhikers in the suburbs, unless I wanted to get stabbed. Secondly, should I have wished to permanently inhabit the city, I would have to become a vegetarian, unless I wanted to get stabbed, and thirdly, to listen to the advice of perfect strangers, unless I wanted to get laughed at. This is where this particular story begins.

Having exited the gym after yet another workout where I was forced to do squats surrounded by several of Edmonton's finest juice monkeys, I realized I had no adequate after-the-gym snack. In light of this discovery, I jumped in my car and headed towards the nearest Mac's. I navigated towards the back, grabbed a classic favourite, the 1 - litre jug of chocolate milk, and made my way to the cash register. Standing at the counter was a 40-something Sikh, who after a second of complete non-caring looked down at my purchase. He looked at me, then at the milk. With something suspiciously close to hilarity, he looked back up at me and did the most unexpected thing. He laughed. He laughed hard. And then he said: "Are you sure this is enough? Is so small for you! You go back and get the 4 litre!!!"

..........................

Now as some of you may have cleverly observed, at 6'1 my height is a bit above the average for your typical female (except others of my kind, but they're all enjoying equally tall men back in Norway and other parts of ancient Viking territory) and I've gotten my fair share of obvious statements about sports I should be playing. This, however, was entirely new. Having never properly prepared myself to respond to this kind of suggestion, I merely stared at him, gave him my money and headed for the door. As I open it, and the man is helping the next customer, I hear his poor attempt to muffle raucous laughter threatening to escape his forest of a beard.

Having no words at this point, I got in my car and drank the milk. Halfway home and all done the milk, I chivalrously conceded that giants do, in fact, require more than a mere 1 litre chocolate milk.