Those Small Milk Cartons With Straws

I can't remember what elementary grade I was in when taking a morning break to enjoy a small, sometimes cold and sometimes not so cold small container of whole milk with my classmates. The Milk Break was part of the daily schedule. I do remember how good it tasted. The milk didn't come in flavors. Not even chocolate. There was no fat free or calcium enriched or soybean milk. Just whole milk in individual cartons. 

The cartons were either opened by the teacher and then the student put a straw into the milk or there was a sealed hole in the carton and either the student or teacher pushed a straw through the hole. Straws were not fancy or colored. They did not have brand names or licensed characters on them. They did not have loops, making it possible to watch the milk go around the loops as a student sucked on the straw. They did not come wrapped in cellophane attached to the carton. 

Instead, the teacher would walk around each table full of students, stopping beside each student so the student could reach into a cardboard box and pick out a straw. Straws were wrapped and sealed in paper so the routine was hygienically safe for all concerned, especially when a student wasn't able to make up his or her mind, dropping one straw wrapped in paper and choosing another and maybe repeating the process.

Those fifteen or twenty minute milk breaks were so much fun. Sometimes when the teacher wasn't looking, a few students would blow through their straws that were in the milk and bubbles would come rolling out on to the table That caused laughter. Giggles. And the teacher coming around to see what was going on. Many times the kids who blew the bubbles were the kids chosen to do the pick-up. That meant they went from one table to the next holding the waste paper basket, waiting for each student to dump their empty milk cartons, straws and napkins in the trash.

From what I remember none of the students taking the waste paper basket around the room minded the task. I guess blowing bubbles in the milk was worth it.



Comments

  1. lil red henJanuary 30, 2021 at 9:28 PM

    I guess I'm too old to remember milk in the cartons; our milk came in glass bottles with a thin cardboard top. I didn't like milk to begin with, so drinking straight from the bottle was something I did not like. The tops of the bottles always seemed dirty to me.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Barbara Briggs WardFebruary 5, 2021 at 6:16 PM

    Truth be known I never liked drinking the milk. It was all about the straw and the carton and being surrounded by the others in my class.

    ReplyDelete

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