Many milk jugs – not all but some – have a circle on the side of them.

A crater, sort of an inverse bubble, in the side of the plastic jug.

If noticed, at all, most folks likely think the circle is some decoration on the milk jug. 

Likely, that circle goes unnoticed. Never given a thought. Even the jug is something, just there, right in front of us, right under our noses, sitting beside our bowls as we munch our corn flakes.

But that quiet, unnoticed circle on our milk jugs has purpose.

If the milk starts to spoil, the circle begins popping out. If the milk has gone bad, it bulges out. That unnoticed circle speaks a quiet warning – don’t drink this milk.

But that’s not all.

Say you grab the jug, ready for a glass of milk to go with a couple of Reese’s cups. The jug is slick with condensation. The handle slips through your fingers. The jug falls to the floor.

Nearly a full gallon of milk. A flimsy plastic jug about to deal with the expanding displacement of impact. 

The circle helps the plastic of the jug expand outward rather than burst when it hits the floor. Sure, a jug can still hit the floor hard enough to burst but the circle makes that less likely to happen.

If milk freezes in the fridge, and liquids expand when frozen, the circle allows the jug to adapt to that expansion.

Some people are like those circles.

Maybe they are at work, or in a group of friends, or a member of a club, or even part of your family.

They are quiet, unassuming. They do not call attention to themselves. 

They may even go unnoticed most of the time.

Unnoticed, unheard and unthanked.

Again, how often is that milk jug circle ever noticed? Forget a second thought, today is likely the first consideration it’s ever been given.

Even when the circle has bulged out, warning the milk is bad, how often have we poured that glass anyway. We didn’t heed that warning because we are too conditioned to ignoring that circle.

If you’ve ever dropped a gallon of milk and it didn’t burst, you may have felt a sense of relief having avoided the mess and been glad you can still enjoy that bowl of corn flakes but it’s unlikely even an ounce of gratitude was given to that circle.

Now, how many people in our lives fit the description of that circle?

People we never see or consider. People whose jobs benefit us each day. 

People whose quiet personalities help us behind the scenes, holding it all together for the rest of us, keeping everything from bursting, warning us when things go bad. 

How many circles do we dismiss as mere decoration? 

How many quiet circles are we overlooking in our lives? 

Dean Poling is an editor with The Valdosta Daily Times and editor of The Tifton Gazette.