here are some instructions for making chocolate milk and then changing your life

prepare yourself mentally. visualize perfect chocolate milk. concentrate as if you were trying to move a large object with your brain waves.

remove the container of milk that has been patiently awaiting chocolate milk status from your refrigerator.

if you don't have any milk, go get some.

if you have skim milk, quit wasting your time, how insulting to the chocolate.

place the container of milk on a steady surface, preferably somewhere in your kitchen for easiest cleanup and shortest commute back to the fridge.

remove a clean glass from the cupboard.

inspect the glass.

place the glass on the steady surface.

don't use Hershey's chocolate. you will most likely vomit because it is disgusting and too rich and actually not that good for making chocolate milk because it is too hard to control the flow of the syrup from the fat squeeze-bottle top.

use Ovaltine.

Ovaltine is the fiber that holds america together. fuck everything else. Ovaltine.

remove the Ovaltine from the cupboard.

place it next to the glass.

pour the milk into the glass, leaving at least one half-inch of clearance to the lip of the glass.

if you want to get it right, use a tablespoon.

most glasses are relatively the same size.

do not use a Pom Tea glass. it is too tall and will be difficult to stir properly. resist the temptation to use the Pom Tea glass.

scoop two tablespoons, one by one, into the milk. enjoy the visual sensation of the tiny powder pebbles cascading down below the surface of the milk, disappearing and beginning to dissolve. this is magical. this beautiful magical chocolate milk is your creation. it is your child. love the chocolate milk. stir the milk lovingly, as you would stir your affections and attentions all around your own infant.

chug the chocolate milk without any sort of self-restraint, hopefully getting a faint chocolate milk mustache. you might as well end your life immediately afterward. nothing may ever be as simple and beautiful again.

i'm staring at myself in the rear view mirror in the back seat on grey leather in someone's car who i met last night, and i think

'i wonder when i will start to develop wrinkles'.

i don't think i frown enough or make facial expressions that require raising or 'furrowing' my brow for it to be any time in the near-ish future.

i am starting to carve laugh lines at each side of my mouth. i think maybe that's a good sign because i smile or laugh often.

i like this thought.

anyway, i'm staring at myself.

i'm fixated on my reflection.

the front windows are down and it's so bright and i forgot my sunglasses and i'm sort of squinting but trying to force myself not to so i don't get crow's feet wrinkles at the edges of my eyes.

wrinkles.

i watch myself smoke.

i watch the smoke come out of my mouth as i exhale.

i wonder if i look 'cool' while i'm smoking.

why do parents always say that people smoke to be 'cool'.

i think how ridiculous that sounds.

i take my eyes off the tiny rendering of my face to look at you out of the corner of my eye.

you're looking out the window at corn fields.

there are so many corn fields here.

i feel stupid.

i look at myself again.

i think i look pretty, sort of, but my eyes are swollen and smoky from chlorine and crying like a god damned baby.

last night you said 'your eyes look smoky. you look pretty', and i was wearing a black one-piece bathing suit i had borrowed that crossed my chest at a straight line and banded around the tops of my arms.

i went inside to go to the bathroom and after peeing looked in the mirror and thought 'i look pretty'.

my mascara had smudged around my eyelids and below my lower lashes when we were in the pool kissing and playing games and splashing around like idiots.

someone had brought their cup of keg beer into the pool.

pool water got into it when she wasn't looking.

i was sitting at the lip of the pool.

i murmured something to you about the pool water in the beer.

you said

'she won't even notice'.

she drank her beer.

she didn't notice.

i wonder if drinking chlorine water is bad.

i feel good because my hair is wet and you told me that i looked pretty.

i feel pretty.

the cranberries float across the pool.

'zombie'.

i begin to sing loudly.

i am drunk.

a beautiful specimen