Spilled Milk

We've got these new cups at school that seem like they were intentionally designed to spill. Some of the design flaws include:

1. They are very wide.
2. They have convex bottoms.
3. They have some poor excuse for a handle that was obviously never meant for a human being to use.

Every morning we serve the preschoolers milk in these cups, and every morning they spill them.

It's not their fault, really. As I said before, these cups are really sucky. And not only are the cups terrible, but we need to fit about eight of them on a plate, so we stack a few of them.

So in the end, we have a castle of cups, brimming with delicious milk, presented in the middle of a table of thirsty preschoolers who haven't yet come into full control of their finer motor skills.

There is really only one possible outcome.

So today they spilled the milk again. One cup spilled all over the plate.

Good, I thought to myself. The milk spilled, which was unavoidable anyway, and the disaster area is contained within the plate. It will be an easy task to take the plate to the kitchen, and.... oh my God, what are they doing???

While I was wrapped in my own thoughts about the milk, the children had launched their own milk clean-up campaign. I had no time to react and stop it.

They ran to get toilet paper from a roll we keep in the classroom. They each took a couple squares and vigourosly dabbed them into the milk pond.

The squares would quickly absorb the maximum amount of milk.

"No, just leave it there, Johnny," I said. But Johnny looked up at me with his big, vacant eyes. He could understand that his name had been said, and that I was trying to communicate something to him.

But he didn't figure it out. So he took the milk soaked square, and carried it back across the room to the trashcan, leaving a long, dripping trail of milk.

Of course the other kids followed Johnny's shining example, and before long, my small, contained spill had become a full blown, all-encompassing milkastrophe.