The Art of Tasting Breastmilk

The following events are based on a true story.  The names and locations have been preserved to highlight the shame and embarrassment.

Wednesday, 12:04 pm.  Cell phone rings.  Heather.  Miss the call. Dang.  Not again.  Work gets in the way.  If a guy cant spend two minutes on the phone with a classy dame in the middle of a workday, then the world has already gone to pot.  

Desk phone rings.  Heather again.  Good.  About to head out to lunch, I stand up and flick the speaker button.

"Hey babe"

"Hey"

"What's up"

"Well...remember how you said you once tasted..."

I grab the handset and kill the speaker function just in time.

Quick hands.  I've always had quick hands.

"...my breastmilk?"

"..."

"Babe?"

"Yes..."

"What did it taste like?"

"Umm...watery."

"Oh...Well, I'm pretty sure I figured out why Rose won't take a bottle.  The breast milk I have that was pumped and frozen a few months back tastes SOUR.  I literally almost threw up when I tasted it."

There is no easy way to transition into a conversation like that in the middle of your work day.

Everything you thought was important about life a minute ago takes an immediate backseat to the current topic.

Me:  "Well, to be safe, you should, umm...probably taste some from the source..."

It's cloak and daggers.  Anyone in the office listening to my side of the story is going to have suspicions.   I'm doing my best to sound vague, for their sake if anything.  I've already had a grenade tossed at me over the phone...I don't need to throw a water balloon filled with breast milk at everyone else in the office.  They deserve better.  Heck, I deserve better.

Pleasantries are exchanged.  I say goodbye.

Can I look at myself in the mirror?  Will my wife start seeing me as a different person? 

Once, after the first "taste test", Heather is talking with a close friend of hers.

Close friend:  "Has Brad ever..."

Heather:  "Tasted my breastmilk?  Yes."

I'm not entirely sure what to think about this exchange.  Its like our wives are programmed to know how weird we are.  The personal conversations in a marriage are secret, sacred, precious things that they will share with all of their girlfriends.

I don't want this spread around.  I want to forget it ever happened.  And my wife's cannibalistic adventure, venturing into territory previously saved for voodoo practitioners and the mentally unstable?  I don't even know where to start.