Oh summer people. Most of you leave after Labor Day, and you’ll be missed. Your little playlets make simple errands fraught with drama.

In the grocery store on the Friday of Labor Day weekend, this scene was playing out in the dairy department: Mom dressed in casual but expensive summer chic, three adolescent-to-teenage boys in T-shirts and wakeboard shorts. The boys are apparently in search of some special ingredient they can’t find in the dreadful backwater where they’ve chosen to have their lakefront mansion. Mom impatiently taps her foot and glares at her shopping list.

“Hey Mom, here’s whole . . . “

Mom: “NO!”

Door slams, doors open. “How about this? Says ‘two percent’” – “NO!” Slam, open, “This one here’s called ‘one percent’” “NO!” Slam! Open, “I dunno what this is – says ‘fat-free’” – “NO!” Slam! “What’s this half and half stuff?” “NO!” “Soy milk?” “NO!”

Open, yell, slam, open, yell, slam. What exotic dairy product were they were looking for? Fermented yak milk from Martha Stewart’s private herd? Imported goat milk infused with saffron and white truffle and dotted with edible gold? Artisanal cheese salted with the tears of the poor?

Mom: “I said I need SKIM MILK!”

Slam, open “Well, Mom, how about fat-free?”

Mom: “NO! I said SKIM!”

Uhhh . . . seriously? Should I explain? But then she whipped out her cell phone and proceeded to give the person on the other end of the call an earful about “this STUPID store in this STUPID town that doesn’t even have STUPID SKIM MILK.”

I’m guessing she probably doesn’t do much grocery shopping. In her regular world, milk simply appears, along with everything else in the kitchen and pantry. Clean laundry, a freshly scrubbed bathroom and a manicured lawn just happen.

Okay then. I’ll just slip in here, get what I need and get out of your way. But damn, it wasn’t until I was at the check-out that I realized I missed my chance to say, “Excuse me, could I just slip by you one-percenters? I need some one percent.”