Milk+Contamination,+A+Play+by+the+Thunderdroids

A Play by the Thunderdroids!
 * Milk Contamination**
 * Cast**: Scientist, Boy, Girl, Young woman (or Man), creator, Inspectors (5 of them)
 * Setting:** In the kitchen of someone’s house.

Great green globs of greasy grimy gopher guts, mutilated monkey meat, dirty little birdy feet. Slime is made from greasy, grimy gopher guts and me without my spoon! (Toss plastic spoons over shoulders)
 * Boy:** Ewww, this milk is gross!
 * Girl:** You can say that again!
 * Young man or woman:** Now don’t be complaining you two!
 * Both Boy and Girl**: But, it’s awful!
 * Inspector 1:** Of course it’s awful, that milk is spoiled! //(Cue music)//
 * Young man or woman**: May I ask who you are?
 * Milk Inspector 2**: I’m a milk inspector of course! I also helped pasteurize your milk. Pasteurization is when milk is heated to a very high temperature for a short period of time to kill germs and bacteria..[|www.brainpop].com has a great movie about it if you want to check it out.
 * Milk Inspector 3:** Lots of milk is getting spoiled these days. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the CDC, 1 in 6 people get sick from food based illnesses each year. It really is a problem. //(Cue music)//
 * Milk Inspector 4:** Yeah, I wish there were something we could do to stop the problem.
 * Milk Inspector 5**: Don’t ask me! All I know is what I read in the book __The Milk Makers__ by Gail Gibbons about how milk gets from the farm to us at home
 * Creator:** Leave it all to me! You see, I have created a device perfect for the problem!
 * Girl:** How does our milk get spoiled anyway?
 * Scientist:** Let me explain, I am a scientist from the Michigan Milk Producers Lab here in Novi, Michigan. If you leave your milk out for 2 hours or more, bacteria will be able to thrive and so your milk will spoil. //(Cue music).//
 * Girl:** Oh, so that explains the bad taste!
 * Boy:** The REALLY bad taste!
 * Scientist:** Exactly! That bad taste is a sign that the bacteria ** Listeria monocytogenes, Campylobacter jejuni **and ** Yersinia enterocolitica **are thriving and growing to unhealthy levels. Over 8,463 people are hospitalized each year and some 331 people die each year because of those same bacteria. The temperature range in which most bacteria grow is between 40 degrees F (5 degrees C) and 140 degrees F (60 degrees C). Dairy farmer Jenny Kyle from New York State shared that with us.
 * Boy:** Boy, those facts are enough to make anyone lactose-intolerant!
 * Creator:** Well, with what I have made, hopefully no one will have spoiled milk ever again!
 * Young man or woman**: What DID you make? //(Shouting)//
 * Creator**: Let me explain. You all know that milk gets spoiled from bacteria growing after the milk has been overheated right?
 * All**: Yes! (Shouting again)
 * Creator:** Well, what I have here is a device that you stick in your milk. It is called the Thunderdroids Milk Alert System. The device would alert you in a variety of ways (texting, alarm, lights, email messages) that you’d better put the milk back in the fridge or that the milk has already spoiled and you need to go buy a new gallon of milk. It would also alert you to the temperature of your fridge. Milk must be kept at approximately 34 degrees at all times. I know that from my visit to Calders’ Dairy in Carleton, Michigan. //(Cue music)//
 * Young woman or man**: I sure could use one of those!
 * Creator**: So could _# (number to be inserted when final polling is completed) people out of 100. They all agreed when surveyed that this device could help save lives all for the low, low, price of $20.00
 * Boy and girl**: What a bargain!
 * Creator:** Try it!
 * Young man or woman, boy and girl**: Thanks!
 * Next Day……**
 * //All Inspectors//**//: The next day, the Boy and Girl pour themselves a glass of milk and leave it on the counter. A little while later they hear a beep, beep, beep, receive a text message, and an email.//
 * Girl:** Uh oh, better put the milk back!
 * Boy:** I can’t believe we forgot!
 * Boy and Girl:** Thank goodness for our thunder droids milk alert system or tdmas for short.
 * //__All actors come out and sing….__//**
 * Examinator 5**: Now, that would taste worse than spoiled milk!
 * All:** EEEEEEwww


 * Listeria monocytogenes ** lister′ē·ə mon′ōsītoj′inēz
 * Campylobacter jejuni ˈkam-pə-lō-ˌbak-tər **
 * Yersinia enterocolitica Yersinia en·ter·o·co·lit·i·ca (ěn'tərō-kō-lĭt'ĭ-kə) **