“Every whole almond that makes this milk great is grown in Australia.”
Sarah scanned the carton looking for further reassurance that she was buying the most ethical and healthy product available.
“Unsweetened.”
So far so good, and on sale for two dollars. She rearranged the nut butters and fair trade coffee in her green bag and started loading it with cartons. As she stood contemplating whether or not the fifth was overkill an annoying little info nugget slid into its way to the forefront of her mind. Some article she had read recently about the impact of almond farming and the Murray Darling. Left hip cocked out to the side she laid down her green bag and whipped out her phone hastily typing “almons milk ethivak” into google.
Ugh. Almond milk is ruining the world. Bad for bees too. Thinking of the bees, Sarah quickly returned the almond milks to the shelf and squatted down next to the woolies brand pleb milks to continue researching an honourable alternative. Her second favourite milk, coconut was described by the Guardian as ‘an absolute tragedy’. Dairy was obviously cancelled and had been for years, who would even? Her eyes shifted toward the fluorescent lights overhead as she imagined the chronically un-woke chugging down their stolen milk, fuelling the meaty cancers forming in their thick bodies. So gross. Without thinking her finger flicked across her phone screen and she was looking at her Instagram story from that morning. Only 82 people had watched the boomerang of her tugging her underwear up over her hips and into her butt crack. Only 74 had bothered to stay tuned for her second photo. She’d spent ages artfully composing the image, laying facedown on the bed, different underwear yanked right up her butt, shadows dancing across her tanned skin and one sultry eye looking back at the camera. Awkwardly pressing the button with her toe, she raised her bum slightly in the air and arched her back. Caption plastered underneath, ‘Thinking about all those affected by the bushfires.’ Only the diehards made it to the third image, an obligatory post with stats about the Australian fires compared to the Amazon.
Disappointed she returned her consciousness to the long life milk aisle and gazed at the wall of rectangular cartons. Hazelnut, hemp and flax were on the up, but so expensive. Rice milk was super gross, she imagined the starchy water and involuntarily poked her tongue out in disgust. She scrolled to the end of the Guardian article, shifting the page up and down trying to skim read and compare the benefits of soy and oat. She’d always imagined oat to be a gluten disaster milk. Bored of not reading she was back on Instagram in an instant. Eyes immediately drawn to the little red icon that made the corner of her screen feel plump, three new messages. One from a woman she’d met in a fitness class over a year ago (user name marybutterfly7), “your such a babe!” Followed by three different heart emojis. Sarah felt briefly validated despite the incorrect use of your. The second message was from some random dude (username josephwot) demanding nudes, so basic and offensive. She screen shotted his filthy comments to use in a future post demonstrating how desirable she was and the fuckedness of the patriarchy. The third message was from Fuckthenorm, a guy from work. All it said was ‘Hot.’ She didn’t find him particularly attractive but his message excited her, she was hot, thank god someone had recognised it.
With a sigh she grabbed a single carton of the cheapest soy milk, not sanitarium obviously, and wandered toward the refrigerated aisle idly flicking over Fuckthenorm’s page filled with bikes and caption-less black coffees arranged next to open books.
Strolling past the freezer a yellow square caught her eye, fifty percent off snickers ice cream! She grabbed a box and hightailed for the checkout so she could eat one on her way to the car.
Eh cool