858: Milk

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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Milk
It's not hard when you have the same thought like 40 or 50 percent of the time.
Title text: It's not hard when you have the same thought like 40 or 50 percent of the time.

Explanation[edit]

Megan and Cueball are sitting quietly, engaged in their own solo pursuits. Without any preamble, Megan answers a question that has not been asked, pointing out to Cueball that he would not be able to obtain milk from her breasts right now, as she is not lactating. Cueball is flabbergasted that she seems to have read his mind, as this was exactly what he was wondering.

Megan, like any healthy adult female mammal, is capable of producing milk from her mammary glands. She does not need to be pregnant in order to lactate; some women are able to lactate before getting pregnant, but being pregnant will increase the chances of her being able to lactate.

The title text indicates that this is not proof of Megan's psychic powers, as Cueball seems quite obsessed with this particular topic, although, if you interpret it as a response to Cueball's thoughts in the last panel it could remain ambiguous.

Transcript[edit]

[Couple sitting opposed, Megan on couch reading book and Cueball a chair with a laptop.]
Megan: The fact that I have breasts doesn't mean you could milk me now. I'd have to be lactating.
[A beat passes.]
[In the third panel, Megan's legs are not seen, probably tucked under the armchair to feel more secure.]
Cueball (thinking): Oh my god she's psychic.

Trivia[edit]

  • Someone being mistakenly considered a psychic, while their statement is only by chance was already the punchline of 628: Psychic, 1.5 years earlier.
  • Making random statements and surprising people in case they are true is also the setup in 525: I Know You're Listening and 2203: Prescience


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Discussion

Psychic and oddly aware of some mad fetishes. Davidy²²[talk] 07:04, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Am I just being pedantic when I note that there is no mention of breastfeeding in the comic? Were I to milk a cow, for example, I would not wish that action to be characterized as breastfeeding. 108.162.219.223 19:54, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Where are her legs in the third panel? 108.162.250.111 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Perhaps she got uncomfortable with the idea of Cueball's continual sexual perversion, and tucked her legs up into the armchair in an unconscious effort to feel more secure. 108.162.219.58 23:41, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

I think it is more likely that she is being witty when suggesting Queball is thinking about milking her breasts. Queball gets the witty remark considering he was thinking about her breast in a possibly sexual context and gets amazed she would know he was having that thought right this minute. --141.101.81.74 14:49, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

"This comic is a comment on the fascination and sheer lack of knowledge that men have about women's bodies in general, and their breasts in particular." There is no justification for this sentence at all. It puts words into Randal's mouth and nothing in the comic supports it. AmbroseChapel (talk) 00:40, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

You read my mind! seriously, you're right about that. also, maybe anybody want to discuss similarity w/ https://xkcd.com/628/ 172.68.143.84 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Technically she never says she isn't lactating, so we don't know that she cannot be milked.

Previously, the explanation said that a woman has to be pregnant in order to be able to lactate, which is not true. Some women can lactate before even their first pregnancy. I have changed the explanation to reflect this. R3TRI8UTI0N (talk) 12:36, 23 March 2023 (UTC)