A reason to REJOICE !

A week ago, I was in Dubai, on a well deserved vacation, after a few months of dry spell in Muscat. Hubby had a few bachelor friends there, and I guess all of them silently wished that I wasn’t with him during this trip ;-). Anyway I was also welcomed gracefully and we had a great time together.

One of these guys owned a car, and another was a close friend, so the four of us hung out one night, at the movies. During the movie, these guys got frequent phone calls which sounded very critical and since then, they were at the edge of their seats waiting impatiently for the movie to end. As soon as the movie was over they sped out and were rushing to drop us at our hotel. It was half past midnight, and I silently assumed that these guys had missed out big on some midnight birthday celebration.  During the drive from the multiplex to the hotel, they kept getting calls from aggressive party animals, who were blaring out their vocal cords and music in the background was so loud that it could’ve been audible to people in other cars on the road.

A birthday party couldn’t be as violent as this one…or was it a bachelor party…my assumptions wandered.

We drove on.

In a matter of minutes, the car halted reluctantly  at our hotel (bypassing certain red lights en route) ,and the guys who now appeared like they fought a tsunami all along, were entirely oblivious of the good nights’ and thank yous’ I was sincerely saying. We both got down and hubby asked, ‘Where’s next?’

And seconds before the car could vroom out of our hotel came the reply…

 “There is a party at my friends’ apartment… as his wife just went to her native place”.

Rodent Menace ...continued.

Following my article Rodent-o-phobia, my sister (who is also my critic and an unmatched support behind this blog) was online and was giving me feedback along with a few LOLs. She enjoys my poor jokes to such an extent that she not only LOLs, but also ROFLs and ROFLMAOs at some of them, whereas the same joke would not have any effect on others. In fact, my ability to crack poor jokes is nurtured by her.

(After reading my article she says...)

She: How can there be mice in your house. It is very unhygienic!

Me: Yeah I thought it was healthy and invited it.

She: No I am serious. There was once a mouse in my kitchen…and I knew it from the smell.

Me: Deodorant?

She: Mice stink, don’t you know. I found it and drove it out with a mop. Also cleaned the kitchen…especially the area where it hid.

Me: You killed it?

She: No I drove it away.

Me: Okay check your wardrobe.**laughs**

She: I saw it going outside my apartment...

Me: Towards your neighbor’s house?

She: No it sped towards the elevator… and squeezed inside...then someone from parking lot pressed the button and the elevator went down.

Me:  Mice these days,  I say…!

She: **ROFL**

Laptop queries , Laptop worries.

My office laptop shows its true colors regularly, three times a day to be precise. Basically this laptop is a pessimistic moron. When I am doing something official, it works fine (moron) , when some person comes on chat, it gets irritable and slow, and when the conversation reaches its interesting best it simply hangs (pessimistic).

When it hangs, the next step is to reach to the system administration team, who are seated in a highly secure glass cage. The entrance to this cage is a sliding door, which when opened, makes a noise loud enough to wake other hibernating computers and even some colleagues. But the pessimistic moron is immune to any sound, you see. I carried the pessimistic moron to the glass cage countless times that, when I open the sliding door the creatures in the glass cage almost know it is me, without even turning around ! Well that’s quite an attribute of the sixth sense category, and it explains why they are seated in a glass cage…we never know!

The weirdest people I've ever come across are mostly from the workplace (or sometimes some relatives ;)).  Some weirdos have this obsession of escalating every trivial issue and send emails marking a copy to the leads, managers, directors and CEOs.  But I am a seasoned programmer you see. They think that  they can easily climb on my head and pull my hair. Others think that every issue can boil down to pin pointing a programmer. Little do they know, that by the number of years of experience in the resume we mean : experience to encounter the above species and strike the ball back to their court…or the satisfaction we get by allowing some people to climb on our heads and then swatting them away at a crucial moment !

People, why I am blabbering so much is that the creatures in the glass cage are analyzing my laptop and I have nothing else to work with…than to take out my notebook and write. The laptop evidently has some hardware issue, it’s a new one within the warranty period, and the logical thing to do is to send it back and get it replaced. But who are we to say. The creatures in the glass cage should decide, you see. They pretend to think it is some virus, which every layman around knows it is not. But the creatures in the glass cage know best, you see.

 But today I am going to gather some guts and say that I want to get my laptop replaced. If the creatures in the glass cage revolt, then I will use the deadliest weapon ever. Sentiments. (You thought I was going to escalate? lol  :D) No one screams at a girl almost in tears. Even the creatures in the glass cage. Shh..now they are in a meeting- which would mean that they won’t be at their desk – but most of them will be seen walking the corridors looking lost. As and when they appear lost, they won’t smile at you for the fear of being assigned with any work and will continue to act intellectual (just like I act sentimental). So when they are back, I will drop the bomb.

 Wish me luck !

Finally, a non cartoon :-)

This is my first attempt at  portraits. A change from routine cartoons. 

Testimony to a childhood inspiration :-)

As a kid, I was scared to go alone to another room in the house, if no one was around. I would hear my footsteps echo like it would inside an empty auditorium…I’d turn around to check if some shadowy creature was following me…the palm of my hand would sweat incessantly.

 Mummy used to knit, read, or value answer sheets from college and be engaged all the time. Therefore she sends me to get her scissors, red ink pen, spectacles or something from her room. I always used to wonder why she can’t keep these things handy, at a place where she can pick it up herself. May be she sensed my fears and kept it at the farthest possible corner of the house, which is on her desk on the first floor. Climbing stairs alone itself was a terrifying thought for me.

One day, when me and Mummy were at home, she asked me,

 “how many people are there in the house now? 

I said “Two, you and me”. 

She said, “No, we are three”.

 May be she counts the spider in the bathroom as a separate person. 

She continued, ‘Jesus is with us na? When Jesus is an invisible presence we don’t have to fear anything. So when you have to go to next room and you feel scared to, just say, Jesus, come along with me”. 

It got etched in my head because at that age, going to another room was the biggest cause of tension. So by softly saying ‘Jesus, come along with me’ I could go fearlessly to the darkest room in the house, even if it had a spider in it.

Years later, as I walked back from office cab after night shifts, amidst hundreds of street dogs, “Jesus, come along with me” was the line which gave me strength to overlook the beasts and move on. Practicing a childhood trait like this one, never felt like something to be ashamed of.

And few days back, I washed my pink tshirt with hubby’s favorite white kurta and the inevitable happened. Pink patches on the white kurta! How am I going to put this out to dry ? !! He is definitely going to see it !

 ‘Jesus, come along with me !’

Rodent-o-phobia !

We all develop notions in our heads, or sometimes wrong impressions about people, places or anything that come our way. Some of them change with time, maturity or an experience which proves otherwise. But some stays on until a spouse gets irritated and chooses to sleep on the couch.

A few weeks back, as I was enjoying an afternoon nap on a lazy weekend, hubby opened the main door of our apartment for some reason. And it happened. The drawback of being on the ground floor of a building – a mouse sped inside and hid behind the shoe rack. It sat there staring at him, helpless, but smartly planning the next course of action. Hubby cleverly closed the kitchen and living room doors and blocked other ways through which the rodent can get inside, and left the main door open. The mouse was check mated and kept staring at him for some more time (silently appreciating the intelligent homo sapien), and fled out. However, the incident was forgotten or purposely neglected by the better half...and I slept away to glory.

Two days later, during a usual small talk the mouse incident spilled out and this scared the guts out of me. “That means there are other mice in the house !” He knew where I was going with that and efficiently changed the topic, but the fact that I have to co-exist with mice was strongly registered in my head.

The next day onwards I started inspecting the area where the mouse hid and kept a watch on that area whenever I crossed it.

At midnight I woke up in horror saying that there is a mouse on the bed and that it touched my toes.

Any small sound, be it from the building behind ours which is under construction, or the random swaying curtains, was concluded to be the work of a gang of mice.

Another night one of the pillows fell off the bed, which was later creatively interpreted that, the pillow actually fell on a mouse, and that I heard a squeal from under the pillow. The pillow was washed and sun dried.

The better half swore to God, that any rodents/reptiles/mammals/dinosaurs, if sighted, will not be disclosed to me.

Psst..that means….there are other rodents in the house. Now that I know he wont tell me, I have to be constantly on the lookout !