Nothing to Defend

RM WEEKLY · ISSUE NO. 8

It's the third Monday of the month, which means it's time for the mail. I sat down expecting the usual, braced for it, and it wasn't there. No gentleman writing in to explain what he thinks the finger technique is really about. No skeptic with his arms crossed asking whether any of this is real. I went through the whole stack looking for the fight, and there wasn't one. Just a pile of people being kind to me for no reason I can find.

I'll be honest. I didn't know what to do with it. Give me a man who thinks I'm insane and I can work all day. But a stack of mail with nothing in it to push against, a serious dairy revolution to run, and me standing there holding these notes of encouragement like a man handed a baby at a funeral. There is no system for this. So we'll figure it out together, in public, the way we do everything here.

The first is from a man named Telby, and here it is in full.

"Can I get rat milk please?"

That's it. That's the whole letter.

There is no warehouse, Telby. I have to tell you the same thing I told the good man in India last month. There is no tanker idling at the dock. There is no rat milk to send you, because RatMilkers.org doesn't make it or sell it or move it from one hand to another. We are a community and a mailing list and a pile of numbers. That's the truth of the thing right now, and I won't pretend otherwise.

But look at that letter. He didn't argue. He didn't ask whether it was possible, or safe, or sane. He asked whether he could have some, and he said please. He wrote to me like a man who keeps rat milk on hand and might spare a little for a stranger. Nobody has ever accused me of being that man. Most of the world wrote me off years ago. Telby looked at this whole operation and decided I was somebody they could politely ask for milk from, and I am not going to recover from that quickly.

I can't fill the order. But the next time somebody can, Telby, you got in line early, and there is no shame on this earth in being early.

The second letter is from Sydney, and it's the one left mark.

"Hello! I just wanted to say that rat milk is a great idea. I'm looking forward to a greener future!"

Now. I have spent seven issues with my fists up. I've argued with the cattlemen, the gigglers, the people who faint at a little dust, three thousand years of dietary law, and a god or two. I am built for the part where somebody disagrees. And Sydney walks in, asks me for nothing, picks no fight. Just recognizes the work, and that the future looks green from where they're standing.

So I sat there turning it over, looking for the catch. That's the truth. I read it a few times looking for the but, the gotcha. There isn't one. It's just kind. Somebody was kind to me on purpose and wanted nothing. I had to step away for a while.

So let me try to take the compliment, since I'm told that's what grown men do.

All of this isn't my idea. I keep telling you people this, and you keep handing me the credit anyway. The rat had this idea. Nature had it, a long time ago, when it built an animal that turns a fifth of its own body into milk every day out of whatever's in the alley. I didn't invent the math. I found it lying there.

So when you say it's a great idea, Sydney, you're right, and I thank you, and I have to tell you the idea was here before me. The most I'll claim is that I'm pointing at it. Somebody had to point.

The greener future, though, that part I'll take and keep. That one I've earned a little. Five-point-six kilograms of rat per liter against twenty-two for the cow, and not one cloud of methane out the back end. The future is greener. It's also smaller and denser and a little ugly up close, the way honest things are. But green, yes. You're looking the right direction.

That's the mail. A person who wants milk I can't send, and another who wished me well and asked for nothing. No fight this month..The mail just came in kind, and the only thing to do is say thank you, and not make it weird, which I have now thoroughly done.

So here's what I've got. The unglamorous work is the same whether they write in swinging, or write in soft. The animal is the same. The numbers are the same. The math doesn't lie on a hard week, and it doesn't lie on an easy one. I just don't get many easy ones, and I wanted to stand in this one a second before it was gone.

Thank you, Telby. Thank you, Sydney. The rest of you, write in. Swinging or soft, I'll take it either way.

Stay bold, my friends.

– BigCrazyBaldhead