My workmate buys skim milk for the office. Can I ask for full cream?

One of my colleagues very kindly purchases milk each week for the office tearoom at her own expense. Lately, however, she has started buying skim milk instead of full cream. Is it ungrateful of me to ask if she minds switching back?
I.M., Port Macquarie, NSW

Credit: Simon Letch

According to my tea-guzzling wife, full-cream milk is the preferred choice of milk for the tea-drinking purist and skim milk is “disgusting, undrinkable chalk juice that pours down a drain really easily because it has no delicious, fatty solids to slow it down”.

But even my tea-guzzling wife reckons it’s a bit much to ask your colleague to switch back to full cream, seeing as she’s the one picking up the milk, paying for the milk and, possibly, driving the milk to work in her car, which is a risky thing to do. Even eight years on, our car still reeks after a little incident involving an Iced Coffee Big M and a speed bump. Milk must travel upright and big milk bottles don’t always fit in car storage spaces; sometimes you have to strap them into the passenger seat with a seatbelt like a tiny white baby in a blue, plastic lid-hat.

On top of that, maybe your colleague is trying to cut back on calories. Or maybe she’s trying to get everyone else in the office to cut back on calories (in which case, she should mind her own business and bring back the full cream milk and a dozen Kookies ‘n’ Kreme Doughnuts while she’s at it).

Whatever’s going on, it would be ungrateful for you to say anything. Instead, you should become the full-cream milk-buyer. Pick it up yourself, pay for it yourself, buckle it into your own car. And put out an arm if you brake suddenly to keep that full-cream milk-baby upright, comfy and safe.

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