Cockroach Fight

We bought our first house on a Friday; Big Guy lost his job the next Monday. My paycheck wasn't enough to cover the mortgage, which set the stage for the great cockroach fight on Tuesday. I opened a fresh gallon of milk and poured two glasses, one for myself and one for Big Guy. That's when we noticed a big cockroach swimming in his glass of milk. My glass was cockroach-free. Big Guy, who really likes his milk, might not have been so upset if the roach was in my glass, but it was in his, and he wanted justice.  Big Guy's plan was to take the milk back to the grocery store, explain to the manager that the milk had come loaded with a live cockroach and demand a fresh gallon. I begged him not to. In a small town, I didn't want to be known as the wife of the crazy guy. I didn't believe the roach could have survived pastuerization. And, I pointed out, this roach was kicking around the milk like a healthy one, if healthy and roach can be used in the same sentence. Most likely, I reasoned, the roach had come in with the moving boxes, fallen into the glass and floated to the top as I poured the milk. Big Guy wouldn't budge on his theory and I stuck fast to mine. In the end, we poured out the milk. Even if I was right about the roach starting out in the glass, I wasn't going to drink that milk. And, as much as Big Guy wanted to blame the milk, he knew his theory stood on shaky ground. We never would have argued about the roach-laced milk if we weren't worried about paying our bills. That is what I would like Congress to understand as it tussles with the President and contemplates shutting down the federal government. Members of Congress will still get paid, but a lot of hard-working federal employees won't. The moral of this story: Check the glass before pouring the milk. If you pour the milk and don't like what you see, throw it out as quickly as possible, on election day.