Lack of Lactose

It's all about the milk, I tell ya'. And by 'it' I mean athleticism and muscles. You see, it's a known fact that Jews don't exactly excel in athletics on a large scale. When you see a big, beefy linebacker coming off a high school football field, chances are he isn't a Schwartz. And chances are he drinks milk with dinner.

Growing up, I would never have milk with dinner. I would drink it after as a healthy frosty dessert beverage, and indeed I really did and do love the stuff. I just never drank that much of it. I've asked my Jewish friends about their milk-drinking habits growing up, and they too did not report drinking milk with dinner.

However, when I would eat dinner at a non-Jewish friend's house, there would be a tall glass of milk in front of my plate. In college, my gentile friends would wash down their tray of refried garbage at the dining hall with a glass of 2%. I wouldn't think anything of this if it weren't for the blaring difference in physical size and athleticism between us Jews and them non-Jews. I would have sprained my ankle just stepping foot onto a high school football field. My Jewish friends in high school were on the same level of fragility. I'd watch in amazement as my Christian counterparts lifted heavy weights, got big and strong, and competed in intense physical competitions. I, on the other hand, pulled a muscle bowling for the bowling team. That was my only varsity letter. Bowling was also the only high school sport in which you could smoke cigarettes and eat cheese fries during an athletic competition.

But back to milk. I really think Jewish parents are turning their children into fragile weaklings by depriving them of their needed calcium and other nutrients. Could it be that they want to keep their precious little babies off the dangerous football field and in their rooms doing homework? Perhaps. But I think we deserve an equal chance at excelling in athletics, a field we've been falling short in ever since basketball players stopped shooting foul shots underhand. (Dad, I know shooting foul shots underhand is actually an accurate method once you learn how to do it, and that these overpaid players who can't make foul shots could improve their free throw percentage drastically by learning to do it underhand. But it's just lame. Really lame. And it makes us look bad.)