Sometimes, it’s not just the milk that goes bad.

Sometimes when I’ve feeling particularly adventuresome, I peel the “paid” sticker off my gallon of milk, covertly exit the store, and wait for a security thug to chase me to my minivan.  They’ll never take me alive!  I shake my fist out the window and laugh as I peel out of the parking lot.  It’s such a rush that I almost drop my receipt.

Somewhere in the distance, I heard a desperate scream.

After nearly tumbling down a flight of stairs and thereby breaking every limb, appendage and digit on my body, it occurred to me that there is one thing about parenting that I will never learn: children will utter “I would like a drink of water” with the same urgency as “I’ve fallen out the window and am dangling from the ledge by a toenail over a vat of hot oil teeming with child-eating piranhas.”

Heart, you may start beating again.