Chapter 23 Task
That is all.
Have fun.
I’m heavy breathing as I tug on my UGGs and rip the grocery cart out from the back of the closet.
Maybe the talking notebook is fucking with me. Maybe at the end of this I’ll just be some idiot who went out and purchased thirty gallons of milk. But I’m gonna get the fucking milk.
I sprint (as fast as one can in UGGs, dragging a portable grocery cart) down the two blocks to the nearest twenty-four-hour ACME.
It’s 10:20 p.m. as I roll on through their automatic doors.
Once I’ve located the proper section, I dump an entire column of 2 percent milks from their massive refrigerator into the cart.
I dump three more columns, jumping between brands because I’m clearing out the 2 percent. When the cart’s overflowing, I maneuver to the checkout and start lining them up on the grocery belt. A teenager is working. She eyes me like the unhinged milk woman I currently am.
“That’s a lot of milk,” she says flatly.
I focus on the conveyor belt as she scans, too embarrassed to look her in the eye. “Yeah. I’m having a party.”
Scan. Scan. Scan. “A milk . . . party?”
I hesitantly meet her gaze. “I’m making desserts with them.”
Her nose scrunches. “What dessert needs twenty gallons of 2 percent milk?”
“Are there only twenty gallons?” I bleat.
I filled the cart! Google says bathtubs take between forty and seventy gallons of water.
“Only twenty?” the teenager says, aghast.
“I have to use the milk for . . .”
She peers at me expectantly.
“Decorations.”
She cringes. “Ew.”
“It’s like this new thing on TikTok.”
“Eww.”
“It’s for my friend’s birthday.”
“Stop, ewwww.”
I frown deeply at my sad, unfilled milk tub.
I have to go out again. Twenty gallons is not enough. It’s 10:50 p.m.
I drag myself back to the twenty-four-hour ACME.
I deplete them of their entire stock of 2 percent milk and head back to the front register, shame flooding every niche of my sad little soul.
It’s still just that one girl working.
I’m watching her from afar when she glances up from her phone and makes eye contact. Her gaze dips to my cart before slowly making its way back to my face.
I push into her aisle, focusing on the jugs as I plop them one by one on the belt.
The thick silence is penetrated only by the rhythmic beeping of the grocery scanner.
When I dare to look up, she’s glaring at me in judgmental silence.
I frown back, racking my brain for some, any, nongross excuse. “I have a baby.”
Her lips part in a grimace.
“And a cat.”
Her silence is deafening.
It’s 11:32 when I dump the final milk into my stopped-up tub. I have the journal open to the task page on my closed toilet, with the pen/hyperconductor lying on top of the page.
Forty milks later. I just spent $160 on a milk bath at 11:00 p.m. on a Wednesday.
I strip out of my clothes, fold them in a neat little pile on my sink, and dip a foot in the tub. It’s freezing.
Correction: I spent $160 on a milk cold plunge.
What if I get hypothermia and die in this tub?
[Thirty-something, unmarried, single, dies alone in bathtub full of milk (2 percent), convinced it would teleport her to California in an effort to see some guy she was obsessed with after two dates. President of witch-themed book club. Delulu.]
I slide in.
The temperature is offensive. Devitalizing.
I hold my nose, dip under, soaking my hair, pop back up, open my mouth, and sip.
Oof. I forgot how cow milk tastes—like it’s just hovering on the verge of sour. I gag down the liquid and aggressively stand, grabbing the bright-yellow towel I have thrown over the shower rod.
I’m shivering violently as I dry off and squeeze out my hair. I tie the towel around my chest and step out of the tub onto my soft blue throw rug. My eyes jump to the pen I left on the open journal.
It’s green.
The pen turned green. I grab it off the toilet and click.
I’m not prepared for the bloodcurdling scream that rips up my throat. Fifteen agonizing seconds pass where I feel like I’m being burned alive. Then everything goes black.