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jormis29
Since: Mar, 2012
30th Jul, 2017 07:11:48 AM
It is in the description of Going to the Store
Sometimes a character leaves his/her family for a long period of time (measured in years), promising beforehand to bring back some milk from the grocery store. Then the character comes back and this excuse is still upheld despite the absurd amount of time that passed. Usually played for laughs (especially the absurdity).
This may not necessarily be milk, just that the person who goes missing for many years has such a flimsy excuse but everyone accepts it anyway.
Examples: in the Fairly Odd Parents Cosmo told his mother that he was going to get some milk so that he could secretly marry Wanda, who his mother does not approve of. He comes back about a thousand years later, and she asks him if he finally got the milk; in 30Rock, Tracy Jordan's dad left him and his mom when he was a kid, promising to get some milk from the grocery store and that he'd be back in five minutes. Fast forward to the finale, and his dad did come back, with the milk no less.