milk vs. the single gal

Sometimes I miss good ol' Madison, WI. I miss Genna's and Paul's Club, the lakes, Monty's Blue Plate Diner and their faux meatloaf sandwich (heaven, I'm telling you.)...and I even miss Woodman's. The friendly, large grocery store with a massive selection, huge discount liquor store attached, mediocre produce, and gallons upon gallons of milk for under $2 each.

I didn't know how great I had it living in Wisconsin until I moved back to Minnesota and started paying for my own food. I then found out that while both states have strong dairy industries, milk (and most other foods, really) is far more expensive here. Oh, but it's not so bad for everyone – it's only really expensive if you're single.

I usually shop at Cub Foods, and I usually pay somewhere between $3.69 and $3.89 for a gallon of milk. That's nearly twice as much as in Wisconsin! But I'm not buying the cheap generic milk, I'm buying fancy pants, rgbh free, virginal white plastic jug milk. Why buy the yuppie milk if you're going to complain about it, you ask? Because it's my only viable option. My other choice is the Cub milk two-pack. The two gallon family friendly milk fest, usually a little over $5 for 2 gallons. And as I walk by jealously I clearly feel the discrimination against my people, the single people who simply cannot drink two gallons of cheap milk before it goes bad. So we buy our overpriced milk and go rant about the state of things on the internet.

Don't worry, it won't be like this forever. Soon enough, on my paltry teacher's salary, I will be rolling in the dough and buying only organic food while sticking my nose up at anyone who doesn't. And I will rave about how fabulous my nearly straight from the udder milk tastes. But until then, I will gripe about buying milk as much as possible.