My milk jars

I have these wonderful 64-ounce canning jars that I got from my mother-in-law, 6 of them.  They fit nicely inside an old plastic bin my mom gave me.  I use the jars and the bin when I go to Mrs. Abee’s to buy her full fat, straight- from- the- cow milk.  Sometimes, the milk is so fresh that it isn’t even cold when I get there, still warm from that productive mama cow.

I have a nice routine set up.  My bin has a special place in my pantry.  Each time I use up the last delicious drops from one of those 64-ounce jars, I wash and dry it well.  Then I cap it with a dry, clean lid and place it in my bin in the pantry.  When all our milk is gone,  all I have to do is grab my bin of milk jars, my clean milk jars,  with nary a dust particle or germ in them.

But one day last week, I entered my pantry for something, most likely a handful of Ghiradelli chocolate, when I noticed two milk jars missing from their bin.  I looked in the fridge, thinking my memory was blipping and that maybe I had more milk in the fridge than I thought.  Nope — only 2 milk jars in the fridge, 2 in the bin and the other 2 were . . . . . . . . .where?  I couldn’t find them.

When Sid got home that evening, he brought in my 2 missing milk jars.

“Ahhh, I was wondering where those got to,” I said.  “What did you use them for?”

Sid stood at the sink, his back to me.  “I put water in them.”

I was busy with supper preparations and almost let that slip by me.

But something wasn’t quite right.  His voice sounded almost too casual, too neutral, too nonchalant.

“What kind of water did you put in my milk jars?”  A brief, but HEAVY pause . . .”Did you put sewage water in my jars?”

“It won’t hurt anything.  I washed them out and we’ll run them through the dishwasher.”  Of course, he sounds completely reasonable.

Nothing like a marriage partner to disturb carefully planned routines and make you flex in areas you tend to stay rigid in.

This is good for me.

This is good for me.

This is good for me.

But good grief, Lord, must I flex to the point of being happy about sewage water in my milk jars?  Is this what being married to a wastewater man requires of me?