The blog of the TaffMasterIts cool as beans!

Written by Rach

I’m one of those annoyingly calorie conscious people. I drink two litres of water a day, I get prangs of guilt when I eat a chocolate bar, I eat five portions of fruit and veg, and for as far back as I can remember I’ve used skimmed milk in the things I eat and drink.

And this is where the story of the milk thief starts…

When I moved to Manchester and started working at an Internationally renowned Charity, imagine my elation when I found out that all the tea I could drink was provided free-of charge. I should probably mention here that I am an obsessive tea-drinker. I get caffeine-induced headaches when I go without a cup and have a tea schedule that I stick to religiously. The only downfall of this is that the milk was semi-skimmed. Well that simply will not do. I’m grateful for the tea, but offering me semi-skimmed milk is like a slap in the face.

So the practical solution was to buy myself my own milk, just a pint, which would be ample for my four cups a day. A few of my colleagues brought in full-fat milk, so it seemed it would be acceptable for me to do the same. I scrawled my name in black permanent marker all over the carton and for nearly twelve months my weekly pint sufficed.

That is until the milk thief reared their ugly head.

It started in the usual way; the contents of the carton looking a little lower than to be expected. Part of me thought I was being paranoid and the other part knew I had no clue who it could be, so I let it lie.

But two weeks ago, the piss was well and truly taken, when a half of the pint was taken. My suspicions grew as to who it was and action needed to be taken!

Now I can be accused of being passive aggressive. Or obsessed, but I really don’t care. I toyed with the idea of marking the carton each time I took some milk, but figured I would eventually forget to do this. I briefly thought about writing obscenities on the pint but the Charity I work for would surely frown upon this. I could have written a friendly but firm message to the milk thief on the carton, but I doubt I could fit it all on.

I resorted to buying a plastic beaker. The thought behind this being if people didn’t know what kind of milk was in there, they would be more reluctant to use it. So far, so good. The mystery of what kind of milk is in the jug is keeping the milk thief at bay. After all, you wouldn’t want to risk having some of that Soya crap in your brew!