You ready for some hard milk?
There was a tap at my desk and I looked up to see Toulouse grinning like a buffoon above me. We called him Toulouse because he resembled a big fatty sausage bursting out of its skin.
Now here he was, bursting out of his skin above me like a wet pillowcase stuffed with meat and giblets.
I beg your pardon?
My left leg kept twitching involuntarily at Hard Milk.
I mean, what the fuck was that? Hard Milk?! Had he frozen a couple of pints of jizz and was readying himself to throw them at me? That was bound to sting. Why would he do such a thing? Didn't he know that I was a kind and loving person who deserved better?
Where would he get a couple of pints of jizz for freezing from anyway? I am no expert in the provenance of jizz but even if he was turning tricks in the evening that would be at least a couple of months hard graft just for me. I'm not that important, am I?
Unless... Elephants?
Crikey, this was getting complicated.
Maybe it wasn't frozen pints, maybe he had just been scraping the dried stuff out of his fingernails. Yes, that had to be it.
Hard milk?
I tried not to sound rattled but my voice betrayed me, and I sounded like I was attempting to sing Flowers by Miley Cyrus on a cheap Karaoke machine.
Don't forget the CHICKEN!
Toulouse raised a clenched fist and pulled it into his waist in that classic pose of victory so favoured by people born in the eighties.
And chicken?
For once I found myself blindsided by someone in work which was a rare event. The subsequent discombobulation was making me feel a little giddy.
In what universe did chickens mix with hard milk?! And I still didn't know what this hard milk nonsense was about.
I could take no more. I had to get to the bottom of this and tootsweet.
I pulled myself to my feet and pointed a stern finger at him.
And chicken you say? Well who the fuck isn't up for hard milk and chicken!
I slapped my hand forward in a high five and Toulouse leapt to meet it resulting in a thunderous hand clap that flattened all of the IT geeks in a twenty-foot radius.
Yeah!
We both exclaimed in unison.
So, get you there at about 6 pm? Lots going, Christmas and all that.
Toulouse ran a hand through his slick hair like a plump unwell Tom Cruise.
Yeah man, where is it again?
I attempted to sound casual as if I didn't suspect that this might be a plot to bag me, throw me in the back of a van and transport me to Romania for the hard milking.
Damn, I hope they didn't whip you if you didn't produce enough. I had heard many stories about the Romanians and their love of cheesy balls smothered in cream. Now it seemed they had developed a lust for good unsullied Scottish milk.
Bram Stoker was right, they were evil. Evil to the core.
And now they were planning to lure me to my milk-producing doom?
Bucks Bar, Up the Trongate, you will be able to follow your nose!
I laughed the laugh of men who are all in on a joke and are absolutely not clueless as to what is going on before quickly rattling Bucks Bar into Google.
Ah.... There it was, a fried chicken and Hard Milkshake place.
Well, that was unexpected. I didn't know whether to be happy or disappointed. No forced milking for the good people of Romania.
Not this time at least.
