Frown Mode.

Besides Siri and Alexa, Pinterest understands me and my interests like no other. On stressful days, my Pinterest home page literally transports me to a world where there are no deadlines, annoying colleagues or emails that begin with 'gentle reminder' , 'as already discussed' and the like. Knowing me, it never displays any recipes or religious advice. Sometimes it randomly pops up hairstyle ideas. However, every hair styling tutorial have prerequisites and not everyone can try it. To begin with, you should have HAIR. Crazy right? 

So the other day, I was hunting for my passport size photo at home. The probability of finding the passport size photo is directly proportional to the respect one has in my house. Like for example, there were many of my spouse, son and parents. And NOT ONE photo of mine. So I headed to the nearest studio to get mine clicked, and the studio lady made me feel at home (more than my family did while I was searching for the photo) and was patient enough to wait until I combed my hair scalp. After that I adjusted my eyebrows which was permanently set in frown mode. She then asked me to relax, and my brain was like, WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY RELAX.

  

In another couple of minutes I sat on a chair looking at her camera lens, and this cheerful young lady clicked a few pics. I walked up to her to see what it looked like. I was disappointed, and so was she. After observing me for a few seconds she said "Why don't you smile? You look so angry".

I looked at my picture again and realized that she was right. I have a resting bitch face and a permanent frown which has grown into my facial structure. Thanks to my colleagues and corporate politics, some of my facial muscles that are supposed to activate when I smile, are in coma. I went back to the chair and tried to smile. The colossal effort I had to put in to smile without looking constipated is indescribable. 

I proceeded to the car wash station, because one more layer of dust could make my wind shield completely opaque. As I waited near the automatic car wash entrance, one guy came up to me and said 'Madam you see that N there on your gear? You need to push your gear to N. N, Madam, N!!!" 

Just because I am a woman it is presumed that I do not know what a Neutral gear is? Does this guy talk like this to men also, I wondered. Dude, I am an engineer and these are the ABCs of engineering, I wanted to explain. N it seems! I went from frown mode to rebel mode and continued to keep my gear in D for the sake of proving my point. 

The only point that was proven was that I couldn't follow instructions even after it has been told repeatedly.

 If that studio lady was here I could have explained to her why I was permanently frowning.