he sees you when you're sleeping. he knows when you're awake. he knows if you leave your milk room doors open!!!

This week the milk inspector came. The milk inspector is someone employed by the state to inspect all dairy farms twice a year and make sure that we're not doing anything too egregious. As you might imagine, he is not the most popular of characters. In fact, for a while I didn't even know his name, I knew him only by the unfortunate but descriptive epithets used by the people at my old job to refer to him.

Now don't get me wrong, I think he is a good guy who does his best at a difficult job. But it gets my panties in a twist to have someone walk around the farm and find shit to criticize. But I smile and nod and agree that I will find out what the meat withold is for some obscure Chinese herbal medicine stashed in the back of the vet cabinet and thank the department of ag that he won't be back for another six months.

My uncle told me a story that sums up most dairy farmers' opinions of their milk inspectors:
When my uncle met his girlfriend's (the woman who i have known as my aunt for my whole life) dairy farming father for the first time, he addressed him as Mr. So-and-So. My uncle says his future father-in-law looked him right in the eye and said "Son, call me by my first name. Only one person calls me Mr. So-and-so and it's the milk inspector."