Cow From Hell

A quick post, to expunge this potent sickness that poisons me from within.

My household ran out of Milo this morning. No more tins of the brown gold, no more emergency quick-mix packets, no more ready-prepared packet drinks.

I am a creature of habit, and Milo is my morning sugar-rush that helps me avoid a nasty, messy death on the highway to school. When I learnt that there was no more Milo, I immediately soured, became grouchy, and lost my composure.

In my distressed state, I hastily agreed to the ‘next best thing’, X-Brand powdered milk. In retrospect, I would rather have slurped down raw eggs with roach eggs. That powdered milk… was… simply amazing.

In a very, very bad sense.

The following poem is meant to reflect the first 20 seconds of excruciating pain I experienced after taking a sip of the powdered milk.

Oh Lord in Heaven, thou hast forsaken me
With this powdered, disguised monstrosity
It lulls your senses and tricks your nose
It knocks your judgment out comatose
You believe it to smell faintly sweet and inviting
When in truth all that it’s concealing
Is an inexcusable ratty stew of milk
No more potent a poison you’ll find of this ilk

It stings! It scalds! It even bites!
As it flows down, my gag reflex I immediately fight
It burns! It throttles! It’s like spoilt sauce!
My eyes by now must have certainly crossed
I think of the animal from whence this came
Surely that’s where I’ll place most of the blame
For surely no hand of man can distill
A morning drink as this without the intention to kill

Yes, yes, that’s it, that’s the answer -
A diseased cow racked with cancer
Skin all peeling with multiple sores
Run over by a tractor the night before
Udders turning a light shade of green
That any reasonable man could have seen
Yet refusing to give up this tenacious grip on life
Before yielding one more bucket of milk to the farmer’s wife

What plagues me is what I must do now
Now that it’s in me, this discharge from a dying cow
To break down and hug my parents a final time?
To bear it stoically and overlook this gastronomic crime?
If I had an option to bury the milk I really would
But my parents have brought me up to never waste food
Therefore the thing that’s crushed my spirit and left me bereft
Is that there’s three quarters of the bloody cup left

I finished it all, like a man. Who would die. Within the next few hours. Whilst screaming for mercy.

On the way back from school that day, I stopped by the local grocery store and bought two big tins of Milo, as well as 60 packets of instant-mix. The lady cashier noted that no one had bought so much Milo at one shot before.

Lady. They ain’t tried X-Brand milk before.