Milk Delivered At Your Door

On M*'s first day of classes, I thought I'd be nice and make M* a nice breakfast of eggs, tomatoes, oj, coffee and fresh sausage and bread from the local butcher. At 7am I walked over and bought the sausage, the bread was still baking, and on my way home I noticed milk bottles on the front stoop of a number of houses - including that of our next door neighbor/ landlord.

I don't think I've ever seen milk delivered. There's a vague memory of such an occurrence when I was very young and lived on Long Island, but I don't think it's a true memory. Milk delivery just seems so quaint, such a throwback, so non-LA, that I rushed to take a picture. When M* was coming home late Monday night from a pub, he ran into the milkman and place a daily order of a jar of milk. Obviously M* was a bit too excited about milk delivery, as we don't go through this much, but all one has to do to change the order is to leave a note. They come around to collect payment once a week. If you are not there one week, they'll just get you the next collection day.

A fellow from M*'s program, who is from Ireland, was surprised that we found milk delivery a novel experience. It's still common in Ireland. As he put it - dairy at your door solves the problem of going to the grocery store and wondering if you've remembered everything only to find out the next morning that you've forgotten the milk for your cereal. Now if you've forgotten the cereal, you're out of luck.

--update - It turns out that you are suppose to leave your empty milk bottles on your stoop. I was recycling them until M* saw me throw a bottle in with the rest of the plastics, glass, etc. His suggestion that the milk delivery company picks them up when dropping off a new bottle is now confirmed. The four empty bottles I put out last night were not there this morning - plus I noticed that my neighbor left his out. Oops!