Monday, November 5, 2018

Sauce by the side


Have you ever done babysitting? Yes? So that means most probably, you don’t have kids of your own. If you have, you wouldn’t dare. Once bitten, forever shy.

I had finished my graduation and was looking for opportunities. My neighbor, Alex Uncle told me that he and aunty had to attend a wedding at a faraway town but his kids had exams coming up. I had to babysit his kids. I was not convinced. 

But I think Alex uncle was a toastmaster. He told me there are 3 kids. The 19 year old college going girl Anita; a very attention grabbing opening statement. Then there was a 9 year old boy Samson; the body which was very poorly drafted, and finally a 3 year old daughter Teena; a rather harmless looking conclusion in diapers.
I have seen the eldest daughter before I had never spoken to her. And I said Yes. 

At 8 in the morning I was present at the Alex residence. Before leaving Uncle Alex told me; “don’t turn your back, don’t look away, don’t…blink. We will be back tomorrow morning”. His wife looked at me with a very sad face…like she was never going to see me again….came close to me….put a hand on my shoulder and said; “Good luck”. Then they left. 

The college going kid Anita was looking bored, the 9 year old Samson was watching TV, and the 3 year old Teena was on the sofa.

I looked at Anita, flashed my toothy grin and said in my deepest possible baritone voice “Hi”…..She walked straight to her room, opened the door, looked at me, said “BYEEE”..and banged the door shut.
That’s when I noticed that the 3 year old was running towards the front door. I ran and grabbed lil Teena, and placed her on the sofa.
And then somebody pulled my shirt; the 9 year old Samson had a steel plate in one hand and a rusty kitchen knife in the other…and he screamed…”COME ON…let’s us play…let us play gladiator!!”

Ladies & gentlemen, I am a very peace loving individual who wanted to do some useful with his life. Ending up at the wrong end of a kitchen knife, in the name of entertainment was not part of my plans.
I asked him; “is it okay if we watch the gladiators documentary on National geographic?” “Nooooo”…cried Samson. “National geographic is for losers…it is all staged…the blood is not real. Come on …let us go to war…show me the blood!!”.

Factoid: I am the sort of peace loving guy who faints minimum 15 times during an injection. First the nurse has to convince me that I wouldn’t die. Then she has to wait for my shaking hand to settle down, that she can grab it. Then she has to find a vein to insert the needle. Then she has to find blood. Most of the time it is like looking for a toastmaster during table topics. You know that they are there, but they pretend they are NOT. More like…now you see one…now you don’t.

And now Sergeant Samson wants to see my blood. I don’t have much and I’m not sharing it. I jumped on top of the dining table and screamed, “Don’t come any closer!” Samson yelled, “Get off the table. It is dangerous!”

What is more dangerous than getting stabbed with a rusty kitchen knife!, I thought. Samson pointed to the table and shouted, “Bad table!”.....and the table collapsed. Anita opened the door; looked shocked and declared, “I am calling the police”.

NOOOO!!

I got up. Above me, a bottle of pickle had broken and I had half of it in my hair. Under me, a plastic squeeze bottle of tomato ketchup was squashed and there was a strange warm feeling inside my trousers. In front of me, Sergeant Samson had his rusty kitchen knife pointed at my nose…and he screamed, “Surrender, you vermin!”

As I watched, lil Teena was once again running towards the open front door. I got up, ran after her, picked her up and was about to lock her inside the kitchen. That’s when a woman appeared in front of the door and she called out, “Is Sandra here?” I said NO. “No Sandra here”.
“Momma!!”..lil Teena cried out. “This stranger won’t let me go. He was now going to lock me in the fridge. Helppp!”

This was somebody else’s kid? What is she doing here? Where is lil Teena? Why my hair smell spicy and my derriere feels sticky?

Ladies & gentlemen and people who leave kids back home and go for weddings, Alex Uncle had already sent Teena to his cousin’s house. Sergeant Samson had waged war with his entire family before. That lil one was the neighbor’s kid. Anita had 3 boyfriends. And I was dumb.

The next day as my father asked me why Alex Uncle wanted him to pay for a new dining table. I didn’t have an answer. Till this date, when Anita sees me, she bangs the door. Whenever the neighbors see me, they hide their kids. The laundry sent my clothes back with a note: Send clothes only. No sauce on the side.

Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Red, Yellow and Stinky






The Red. The Yellow. The Stinky.

They were cushions. On the same sofa. Each one looked different, they were placed different. They also smelled different.

Red was of course red and round, with some silly thread like lace attached around the outer edge. Yellow was yellow, square and bigger, and carried the burn from a cigarette proudly like a battle-scar. Stinky had an obscure color, much like drainage water and smelled almost like it. Part of its entrails were always hanging out like someone did a partial disemboweling. They lived on the same sofa. So close, so alike and so very different.

Their conversations were usually centered around who (or at times what) sat on them. Work place chatter was not different with the three. There were complaints, foul language and some occasional sobbing. Red was usually angry and foul mouthed. Yellow was apathetic and had a wicked sense of humor. Stinky was a cry baby and was suicidal according to Red.

Friday. It was an exceptionally bad day for Red and it was foaming at the mouth. This usually happened around early Friday mornings. 4 am to be precise.

Thursday evening is when an expatriate calls together his/her tribe and tries to find meaning for their existence through war cries, in a plate of fried chicken, at the bottom of liquor bottles. The program usually goes on till next day early morning until one by one, everyone falls asleep.

The guy wearing only a skirt (?) had buried his face in Stinky. A drool approximately 10 cm long had partially dried across Stinky. Stinky, who harbored DNA from another 100 odd people on him, wasn’t pleased but had given up a long time ago to complain. Red, on the other hand was yelling profanity at another guy who was fully clothed but had involuntarily urinated on Red. “Get off me, you dead punctured pencil di*k”. Only the voice was heard. Red was somewhere under the vast expanse of humanity wearing the world’s largest boxer shorts. Yellow was comparatively in a better position and had the best spot in the room. Someone had picked up and flung Yellow high up in the air under a schnockered fit of energy and had it stuck on a ceiling fan. The ceiling fan was still rotating very slowly. Yellow felt giddy.

But Yellow couldn’t help listening to the profanity arising from under the boxer shorts.
“Red, is that you talking, or is that guy’s arse? It all sounds the same, me think!”
“It would, if you were here too, you prick. In fact, you belong here. Matches your color”, retorted Red.
“What a time to discriminate against color!” mumbled Stinky, trying not to breathe in the drying drool.

There were more people in the room. One snored like a spluttering genset. Another had his mouth open and a house fly buzzed around it, as it was afraid to go in. There was a dead fly inside the open mouth. Figures.

The clock struck 10. The guy in a skirt jumped up and broke his drool-connection with Stinky. He looked around through wilting eyes and wrinkled his nose at the boxer shorts. The smell of urine was apparent. He got up, adjusted his skirt, lifted a leg and ripped a lengthy one. The boxer shorts lifted a head in the opposite direction and asked, “Who?”
“You meant WHAT, fatass”, muttered Yellow from above.

The sound of flatulence worked like an alarm clock and slowly human forms got off from their resting places. Red let out a cry. He was soaked in urine. Stinky was laughing at Red’s predicament.
“Ha ha ha…finally they found some use for your sorry ass!”

The guy with the open mouth looked up and saw Yellow doing his rounds on the fan. He climbed on to a coffee table and retrieved Yellow. The big guys in the boxer shorts was looking apologetic was trying to explain something to the guy in the skirt. Others also had joined the conversation. The big guy had Red in front of him pressed against the area wet with his own pee. Stinky was still laughing at Red. The big guy got up, snatched Yellow from the other guy and stuck him to his posterior. Stinky sounded hysterical with laughter.

 “You got it all covered in between you, don’t you guys!...Ha ha!”

That’s when the guy in the skirt snatched Stinky and puked his guts out on to it.

Red & Yellow (in chorus): You didn’t get all covered dude. He forgot the corners!

Sunday, February 4, 2018

What's on your mind!

(pic credit: www.giopetrucci.com)


Facebook asks you all the time; “what’s on your mind?”

It is not mandatory to answer. If you got shit on your mind, don’t speak a word.

It’s also ok not to reveal everything about you and take away the suspense; because Facebook isn’t your diary. There is some stuff that is better off when it is off the Facebook.

For instance…

You don’t have to check in every time you change your seat. For eg: this uncaring world isn’t really concerned about you checking in to 
the neighborhood grocery store. Well..even if it’s in the Bahamas. It doesn’t tax anybody’s brains to guess what you would be doing in a grocery. Unless you robbed the frickin shop; in which case, you should perhaps not tell anyone that you were there.

Stop being a cry baby. It doesn’t paint a very smart picture of you when post “Oh I hit my shin against the sofa!”…accompanied by a mobile phone click that shows a leg, 5 inches above the knee. Girl, we know what you did there!  Or..”Oh I’ve got the flu”... accompanied by a snotty face, looking like you just delivered triplets through your arse. In most cases you wouldn’t die. You didn’t, last time. Remember!

You do not approve of Jay Z’s choice of the color of the burger he bought for Aaliyah. It perhaps broke your heart irreparably. So you have what everybody else has got. An opinion. However your 120 word motivational piece titled “Men are blind” won’t make it to “movers and shakers” of the year. It sucked. It will continue to suck as long it is on your timeline. 

That server who didn’t give a third helping of the wild mushroom sauce was perhaps not the world’s best. But she doesn’t “deserve to die”. She ain’t a “bitch”. Even if she “had a fat ass”. Even if “her parents were related”. Your rant might have got 496 likes and comments such “Are you related to George Orwell!”. But it was in poor taste. A rant is a rant. Not literature.

Your kid is special. So is every other kid. “Oh lil Johnny said ga! Oh he just undid my button. He said ja. He speaks latin! He cooks his own breakfast!  Gosh…my lil 2 year old Johnny said his 1st 4 letter word today!” Well..a few years down the line he will post his own 4 letter word online. Don’t be an incessant, vain parent online. Keep it classy.

You got ditched. Most probably not for the first time too. Happened to somebody else too. Shit happens. Don’t smear that on a Facebook wall and go on a “beat-my-chest-till-I-die” mode. Talk to a real person. Call a friend. Share the grief. Stop wailing. Facebook isn’t your therapist. You are making somebody happy when you wail on Facebook.

You took a Facebook quiz and it says you are a unicorn. You took another one and it says you should be the King of Scotland and after you give up the ghost, there will be flood. Stop taking quizzes. Try scrabble. See how well you fare.

Somebody died. Perhaps someone real close. It is traumatic. You feel utterly crushed and you are in a lot of pain. Go ahead. Cry your heart out. Mourn. But if you have posted your dear one’s lifeless face and a sad emoji on Facebook, well..something else died inside you. Stop turning death in to a celebration on Facebook.

I have another thought now. But it’s ok if it’s not on Facebook. None of us are that important. 

The Great Plan

  “Everything happens for a reason” What? That has to be mankind’s vain effort to make sense of everything that happens around them. To ...