Years ago (somewhere between the advent of mobile phones and the demise of the horse and cart) Governments of the day decided to improve the health of West Australian primary school children. Consequently around 10am every school day we’d be presented with a tiny glass bottle of milk, at least I think it was every day. However while politicians patted each other on the back (it was before hi-fives), they were blissfully unaware of the cunning that is … a class of year 5’s.
 |
© The Ponder Room
|
Having sat outside the classroom in a crate under the Australian sun for two hours, the little glass bottles would arrive warm to the touch. Thankfully only a few had curdled.
Gleefully we’d set about devising new ways to remove the silver foil tops. The less creative kids simply pressed a thumb down hard on top and be rewarded with a pleasing pop and slightly wet appendage. However some of the tops were more stubborn. They saw us fossicking for something sharp … a metal ruler perhaps.
Once we’d slit them opened we’d scoop out the best bit, the cream on top, not forgetting to lick off any left on the underside of the lid being mindful not to cut your tongue on the razor sharp edge. Yes they were dangerous times back then. If the metal rulers, protractors and a myriad of other potentially lethal weapons weren’t bad enough, a sharp foil cut really killed on your tongue. Still we soon learnt how to master the move so as to maximise the tongue to cream ratio. Next came the piece de resistance, so simple in its execution it makes you wonder how we got away with it for so many years ...
The Government officials knew they’d be fighting an uphill battled expecting tiny tots, to down bottles of sun warmed milk. No doubt a committee was formed ...although maybe not, maybe back then it was simple a case of George walking into Brian's office declaring…
‘Let them have Quik’,
‘Good idea Brian I’ll tell Marge and we’ll fire up the xerox machine.’
So it was that in classrooms across the state we were allowed to place a teaspoon of Quik powder into our milk. What’s more there were two choices … strawberry or chocolate, mmm.
What they didn’t realise however was that unchecked the milk monitors of the day would often ‘slip’ with the amount of Quik put in. On many occasions my little milk bottle arrived so dark it resembled soya sauce, or it would have if I’d have seen a soya sauce bottle, which was highly unlikely as Asian saunces hadn't made their way into the average Australian kitchen at that time.
Years later I now ponder:
- Whether as a primary school student I was unknowingly learning the valuable life lesson of ... taking what officials think we need and turning it into what we really want.
- Perhaps Australia’s obesity problems can all be traced back to the cunning ways of unsupervised milk monitors.
