23 Gallons per Milo

By Dave Fox

I knew something was wrong when I heard a knock at my door.

People don't knock on my door. I live in a building with a pesky intercom system at the main entrance that's designed to deter knockers. But someone had infiltrated the building. There was danger afoot.

"Yeah?" I shouted cautiously, wondering if I should unleash Percy, my pit bull

Then I remembered I don't own a pit bull named Percy… which is a good thing because I have trouble keeping plants alive. If I owned a pit bull, I'd forget to feed him and he'd eat me.

Milo... in one of his more jovial moments.

Fortunately, the knocker was not a dangerous intruder. It was my neighbor, Milo.

Milo is four months old. He lives a life of luxury. He has never worked a day in his life. His parents, Melek and Clifton, attend to his every need.

Milo didn't say anything when I opened the door. He had brought his mom along to act as his spokesperson.

"Dave," Melek said, "do you want to be the best neighbor in the world?"

Here's a home safety tip for you: If anybody ever asks you that question, it's a trap. Run fast.

"What do you need?" I asked.

"We're moving," she said.

I knew they were moving. Did they need help squishing their belongings into the van outside? A little manual labor might do me good.

But that's not what they wanted.

"I have a doctor's appointment," Melek continued. "It was the only time I could schedule it and Cliff has to supervise the movers right now."

"Okay," I said. I was getting nervous. When it takes this long to ask for a favor, it's something big.

"Would you mind watching Milo for a couple of hours?"

Was she insane?!

I fumbled for the right words. "I'd love to help you out, but I don't have a baby license. You know why my condo has no plants? I killed them all. I'm not good at keeping things alive. Pet goldfish have drowned in my custody."

"All you have to do is feed him if he starts crying," Melek said. "If you have any problems, Cliff is right down the hall."

The next thing I knew, Milo and I were alone together. I had to take him in.

I'm not good with babies. Within minutes, my condo was filled with the most desperate sobbing you could ever imagine. The sound was ghastly. But I quickly realized all this crying was getting me nowhere. I dried my tears and went to check on Milo.

There he was, all sweet and angelic, squirming in his stroller, making baby noises. I tried teaching him Norwegian. That's when he started to get cranky.

His smile faded. His noises turned ominous. They were those sounds babies make that mean, "If you don't fix whatever's wrong, I am going to begin howling. You have approximately 17 seconds."

And you have to guess. That's the annoying thing about four-month-olds. They never just come out and tell you what's wrong. They are lousy communicators.

What did he want? A nursery rhyme? A walk in the park? Tickets to Barbados? I didn't know. I began to get scared.

I offered Milo his pacifier. He whacked me on the ear with it. I wiggled his little stuffed lamb that makes baah baah noises. That really pissed him off. Then came the explosion. Suddenly, this 14-pound innocent-looking creature was wailing like an air-raid siren.

I leaped around the room, looking for something to stop Milo's tears. Was he hungry?

"If you need to feed him," Melek had advised me, "just put a pillow on your lap and lay him on it. Lift his head up, and make sure his lower lip is outside the nipple of the bottle."

Never before had the word "nipple" sounded so terrifying.

Melek's words echoed in my head as I rifled through my closet. I needed a pillowcase. An old one that could be destroyed in the event of baby stains.

Milo screamed. I don't speak Baby, but I understood him clearly. "Get your lazy, bottle-holding, adult butt over here and FEED ME!!!"

I plucked him from his stroller and fumbled with the nipple. Then suddenly, like magic, all was happy and peaceful in the universe. The only sound was a contented sucking noise. Milo looked at me with wide eyes as he slurped.

A river of milk dribbled down his neck, onto my couch.

I needed a free hand to clean up the milk. I pulled the bottle away.

Milo started screaming again. I was interrupting brunch.

I dried him off quickly and re-nippled him. Again, all sound ceased and the world was a happy place.

One of the truly weird things about small babies is they are not much larger than the bottles you feed them from. Milo had a full bottle of milk, and he would not be content until every ounce of it was squeezed into his pint-sized body. Scientifically, it makes no sense that you can put that much milk into a baby that small, but babies don't care about physics.

Once the milk was finished, I sat with Milo on my lap for a few minutes and played with him. He started to cry again.

What was it now? I had just fed him 23 gallons of milk. He couldn't be hungry.

I tried the pacifier once more. He whacked me with it. I tried wiggling the lamb.

"Baah baah," said the lamb.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!" said Milo.

I had no clue how to stop this kid from crying. I looked for an off switch.

Then I remembered something I had seen Melek do a few weeks earlier after she fed Milo. She burped him.

I had never burped a baby in my life. I had never burped anyone other than myself. I knew I should pat Milo on the back. But how? Fast? Slow? How hard? I didn't want to kill him. Cause of death: Excessive burpage. But I didn't want to be a wimpy burper either. He'd lose all respect for me.

Well, let me tell you… I might be an amateur at this sort of thing, but I did a damn good burping job. The next thing I knew, Milo burped up milk all over my shirt — enough to fill a kiddie pool. I congratulated him and laid him back in his stroller.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

It started again.

I heard Clifton out in the hall. I opened the door.

"Hey! How's it going?" Clifton asked. He had an encouraging smile.

"Your son hates me."

"No," Clifton said calmly. "He just likes attention. If you can hang on for ten more minutes, I can take him back."

Ten minutes was my uppermost limit. Any more time might force me to come in contact with other baby substances.

But Clifton and Melek thanked me profusely. They were having one of those moments in life when too many things were happening and they needed help from a neighbor. I was flattered they trusted me with something so precious.

I passed them in the lobby a few hours later as I came home from lunch. Milo was still alive, and showing no signs of trauma. He smiled and waved at my leftover sandwich.

"I've got something upstairs for you," Melek said. She invited me into their emptied-out condo and handed me a bottle of champagne.

"This really isn't necessary," I said, though I was secretly happy. I took the bottle back to my condo. Suddenly, like magic, all was happy and peaceful in the universe again. The only sound was a contented sucking noise. A river of champagne dribbled down my neck, onto my couch.