Tag: Humour

Time Will Tell

I am all for a little complexity in life. After all, that is what keeps us peppy and full of zing what? But I don’t understand how the time change twice a year is useful. Complex yes, but useful no. Probably in the days of yore if I’d been an old farmer’s daughter, and the extra hour of sunshine meant the difference between having water and milk as opposed to strawberries and cream for breakfast. Now, even if you fill me up to my eyes with daylight, I am not sure I am going to gorge out on those strawberries with the oh-so-sinful cream. So why do we still go about with this bother?

Why do I sound this piqued for something this normal and predictable? Well..it is the unpredicability of it all. You know how your computers automatically fall back an hour in the fall or spring forth an hour in spring? I expected my phone to do that too. It did.

I have the alarm set for a reasonable hour every morning on weekdays and what do you think the correct time showing cell-phone did to me? It rang an hour earlier than it was supposed to. Now, I am a great snoozer eh..snooze-presser. I love hitting snooze, but even I thought an additional hour of this encumbrance can ruin the joy of the early morning snooze because as with all regular snoozes, this cell phone does not allow you to indicate the time limit in which to remind you again. So, 10 minutes later, I will be fumbling again and then again in 10 minutes afterward. Exciting as mornings go, this doesn’t appeal to me very much when the clouds of sleep are still gathering around and singing me my lullabies. So, I dismissed the alarm and set a mental alarm to get up an hour later.

Only the agile mind sprang forward an hour like an over-zealous tiger making it two hours after the alarm went off. The scramble that ensued is not for the public eye to discern and dissect while shaking their heads in dismay, and has been withheld.

One news article claims setting it to airplane mode for a while helps. I may do that, but if I forget to set it back, will it still arouse me, or assume I am travelling by airplane and my fellow passengers deserve to sleep better and flip out on me again?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110314/ap_on_hi_te/us_iphone_glitch

Time will tell ….

Fire and Ice Appeal

The morning commute was an interesting one. One moment, there was silence and lackadaisical looks from fellow commuters who could not wait to get to their workspots. I was just wishing that something to brighten up the atmosphere would come up, when the very next station brought in mice, ducks, fairies and princesses. Though it is generally an argument (with merit) to say I hallucinate in the mornings, I kid you not. I saw them all. The squealing and the quacking breaking into the still silence of grumpy morning commuters was a very real one.

To one whose most interesting moment in the past week has been the fact that a building’s fire alarm system considered me a hot one, this was indeed something. Again, allow me to explain: I walked past the building and the buildings alarm went off
“WAHANANANNAANANANANANN”

I don’t suppose it is easy to jump up in alarm when one is walking at a steady 45 paces a minute, but I managed it with some difficulty. I restored the nerves from a-jingling, rectified the center of gravity and set off again (for those wondering why I did not do the noble act and help residents out in their time of crisis, the building seemed to be an empty one and not even the receptionist bothered to come out and check) So, I set off again and I had just crossed the perimeter of the building when the alarm stopped. So, I stepped back into the sidewalk right in front of the building and off it went again. The red hot fire alarm seemed to be whistling itself crazy – See?
This morning, a little boy mouse came and sat next to me, I questioned him where he was going dressed up like a mouse, and he grinned and said they were going to watch the Disney on Ice show and that was why it was particularly important to dress up like the characters. “Where are you going?” he asked.
I told him that I wished I could go to the Disney on Ice show too, but I was going to office.

“You can come with me too. You can sit and watch Mickey with me.” he said blushing deeply while his mother looked on and smiled. He then blushed a little harder, looking a deep fire alarm red and said, “We could have ice cream together there.”

A pre-schooler and a building. What can I say about my charm?

I would have gone, but the building might miss me.

Valentine Cockroaches

My college days found me staying in what roughly can be called a ‘hostel’. Only it wasn’t. It was a house that converted into shared lodgings for 30 odd girls. There is a whole saga of my life there in that hostel that would simply take up reams of space. Dining in the place was a simple problem. We had asked one of the messes nearby to bring us our food to the tin shed that doubled up as our dining hall.

I have often wondered how these eateries got the name, ‘Mess’, and it dawns on me that it is probably the mess that is all around that contributes to the name. Anyway, this particular mess that served our food was not the best, it certainly wasn’t the most hygienic. One day, as we were sitting with the sambar floating in our plates over the rice, one of my friends asked me to check whether the red chilli in the sambar looked red chilli enough. I gave her a feverish look. That day was one of the days, I was genuinely hungry and the watery sambhar even looked savory from a distance. It wasn’t as brick reddish as usual and I was rather looking forward to it. I gave her a look of disdain that was entirely lost on her. She was too busy staring into her plate. So, I joined the band of observers and it did seem a little strange that the red chilli should have sprouted little feet and arms. There were distinctly there.
“Maybe, the chilli split in that odd manner.” I said unconvincingly, only to have my co-observers give me a look of disdain. What goes around comes around I tell you.

And so it was that despite my best intentions to believe otherwise, the offender was classified as a cockroach. UGH!

In other news,Valentine’s Day is here, and the daughter is all a-twitter. I have been asked several times what I consider to be the most important day of February. There is love in the air. This time, with all the attention this day is getting in her life, I thought it a rather bright idea to see what is it that other folks were getting the loves of their lives. The roses and the chocolates I knew, but what I did not know was this….

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110211/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_valentine_cockroaches;_ylt=AqHiIYNehXxlvYRA3zuFdHvtiBIF;_ylu=X3oDMTMzc2EyY2hiBGFzc2V0A25tLzIwMTEwMjExL291a29lX3VrX3ZhbGVudGluZV9jb2Nrcm9hY2hlcwRwb3MDNwRzZWMDeW5fYXJ0aWNsZV9zdW1tYXJ5X2xpc3QEc2xrA3JvYWNoZXNhcmVmbw–

Here is a gift – I don’t know if any, but die-hard naturalists would consider the gift romantic, but there it is. The chance to name one of the species of cockroaches for now and ever more is the Valentine’s Day Gift.

Given that the creatures do not kindle any loving instincts in me – in fact the only images they kindle in me are those watery sambhar images, I think I’ll pass.

Sneeze Freeze

The past week has been rough. The nose acted up and sneezed its way through nights and what should have been tasty meals.

I remember someone telling me during my highly impressionable youth that if you stared at a bright light when you feel like sneezing, the sneeze will freeze midway through. So, you can go back to normal from a eyes-puckered-stomach-clutched-eyes-watering stance to a normal one without even sneezing. It has happened once or twice and always makes me laugh. So, I spent one morning staring at the Sun every few minutes. After this enlightening experience, I tottered into the home partially blind only to bang into sofas and chairs placed in my path while sneezing just as hard as before.

Imagine then, how special I felt when I saw the world took note of my misery and decided to have a program on National Public Radio about sneezing.

http://www.npr.org/2011/02/07/133499190/what-ah-choo-can-do-for-you

I smiled through my sneezes the whole way through. Apparently, there are some folks who seem to react with sneezes at unexpected stimuli – like while eating mint. Throw something like this at me, and I had to try. I popped some mint into my mouth to see whether I would sneeze more, but as it turns out, I belong to the category who does not sneeze at mints. In fact, I seemed to belong to the category that stifled sneezes with mint. I laughed – a deep, villainous laugh at my system. I scoffed at the sneezes that I paralyzed within me using the simple method of having couple of mints, and boarded my train.

Usually mints are supposed to keep you fresh and awake. But the sudden stoppage in the sneezing, meant my body saw this as perfect opp. to catch a snooze and before I knew it, I was dozing with a minty freshness that little things like railway announcements could not tap me out of. I slept clean past my station, and spent the fresh morning hours grumpily waiting on an alien platform, waiting for a train to chug in – in the opposite direction. When something like this happens, the world suddenly seems to set itself in slow motion. I spent the precious moments musing all the while that if a sneeze out of my system can make it at 40 mph, why can’t I feel like I am getting somewhere at that speed?

The article ends on this enigmatic note
“Want to stifle a sneeze? It’s possible, Meltzer says. Just press hard on the bridge of your nose.”

I just might have my nose in a bandage when you see me next, but you know why.

Fox shoots man

Fox shoots man : http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70C5Q620110113

I don’t remember the time the tide turned in my favour, but it was around the time I shot that man. I hadn’t been a particularly obedient cub, and my mother would always discipline me for being lax about security.
“It would never do to nap where people can see you Loxim. What if you are injured?”

I was one of those calm sorts, and ignored everything she said, unless she was particularly hysterical, in which case, I would make my ears droop and the shoulder hunch and sit down with a sorry looking expression on my face. She couldn’t stay angry at me for long, for I never once lost my temper or fought back. She told Papa proudly that I was one to be watched as all my pent-up anger is bound to come leaping out of me in one shot one day.

I would then go straight back to napping on the rocks by the ledge. One had to accept the beauty of my favorite spot – the best sunshine with bright, fat rabbits hopping up and offering themselves up to you. Then one day, this buffoon of a man came and tried to attack me. I wasn’t particularly pugnacious, but you can’t sock me on the skull with a long stick and expect me to keep quiet. He kept hitting me and when I couldn’t take it anymore, I just used up all my concentration, and Mama was right. All my pent up anger came out in one shot  – it was a loud ringing noise, and the man looked agonized.

I was so scared of what I’d done, that I ran away myself and watched from afar. One thing was certain, my pent-up anger had caused the man distress. Maybe I was one of those rare specimens meant to be watched. I was scared, but proud too. I limped to my mother and told her what had happened. If she felt awed then, she did not let on. She just cuddled me, but after that I was the indisputable king. Other foxes tucked their tails behind their legs and fled when they saw me, rabbits froze in my presence.

I have not displayed my super-natural powers ever since, but they all know it is lurking within me, and that is good enough for me!

Crocodile! Crocodile!

Crocodile! Crocodile! May we cross the Golden river?
Crocodile: Yes you may, if you have cyan on you.

I remember this being one of the hottest games of our youth. We roped off a portion of the street and positioned the crocodile in there, while the goal for the remaining was to cross the river. If you did have the colour the crocodile was looking for, you usually donned an unnecessarily supercilious expression and made a big scene about strolling across the river, while the poor crocodile looked more crocodile-like than crocodiles do – wanting to tear and rip you apart, but the rules of the game bound one. The ones who did not have the colour on them ran across while the croc lunged and grabbed. If caught, you were the next crocodile and so on.

When we first started playing this game, we were very much the rainbow kids – not very innovative in our colours. Then slowly, we expanded to yellowish purple and bluish orange. Anything to get all of them to run across. That was when, I quipped, “I have diglish danglie on my underwear” (Or whatever ridiculous colour it was), and stroll across. The modicums of decency allowed one to stroll across wearing a white panty without verification, but just a small pang of guilt. Best to leave the attitude behind on such occasions. But this method was soon vetoed, because one could not possibly have 255 colours, and all their permutations and combinations on a small panty, and some people claimed they did.

I loved playing this game because this is when I started taking an interest in vocabulary. I learnt about ‘Scarlet’ and ‘Turquoise’ and ‘Garnet’ and ‘Fushcia’ just so I could ask for these colours when it was my turn to be a crocodile. I am not even sure I knew the exact colour myself, but so didn’t the others, and I was finally queen of the river.

Imagine my chagrin then when years later, I said ‘Teal’ or ‘Mauve’ matter of factly only to have the husband stare at me like he was oggling through a glass barrier at a very mentally disturbed gorilla. “You mean purple?” he’d ask. I let it pass thinking the poor lad in his youth hadn’t played this enriching game of crocs and must not be penalised.

Then, I read this article about different kinds of color blindness. So, where some see palettes of colours, others don’t. It also gave me a tit-bit that I have suspected all along. Women are less prone to being color blind than men.

http://mikestake.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/im-blind-colorblind-that-is/
I quote:
“Color blindness is an inherited condition(usually anyway) most common in men ( 8-12 percent of Caucasian men, and less than one half of one percent in women).  ”

Not all forms of colour blindness is acute enough to not recognize primary colours – it is subtler than that. While we see the bottle greens and the olive greens, some of them just see green or possibly gray. I’d like to play Crocodile Crocodile with one of these people just to see how interesting it is.

All for one and one for all

My previous post told us about the sort of cloth headed things one needs to do when the partner is standing in the queue for food. The partner, in the meanwhile, was bored stiff. He took to observing those fellow sufferers in queue with him.

It turns out the family right in front of him had adopted a fundamentally different approach from the one we had adopted. We had decided to go for the divide and rule policy – queues vs scourging for seats. The family in front of us seemed to be staunch believers that everything was an experience to be shared by all. Every time, I circled back to see how the queue inhabitants were doing, I had the All-for-one-and-one-for-all song ringing in my head. Not that there was anything wrong with this approach, but it did seem like the children could have done with some time to sit quietly while the food was ordered. There were two children, and two adults. They did not seem to be complaining to us, but, I couldn’t help noticing the children spilling all over them and crying (1 infant plus one girl). At one point, the infant in their arms attempted a parabolic dive into a location known to her alone from her father’s arms. The older one had a most unpleasant expression on her face. Like Disneyland wasn’t at all the magical place she’d expected. The poor child probably thought that if somebody waved their wands, the food would find their way to them.

Ever the resilient birds, they waited. Nature had taught them that patience is rewarded with a plate of whatever was up there on the menu charts. The line snaked slowly, dully, their aching legs causing them to squat even. Eventually, they reached the counter.

The whole time, we’d been there, the menu was written in large signboards and were flashing in front of us. The husband and brother, who were the queue heroes for the day, had prepared  a magnificent list to recite at the counter, replete with dessert. According to them, if you were standing for this long, it might as well be a grand lunch. Admirable sentiments, if not wholly agreeable to the belly.

Imagine our chagrin therefore, that the all-for-one-family spent a full 10 minutes deciding what it was they planned to eat at the counter. I mean – the dishes were right there! Could they have missed the boards? Not possible, it was the only thing to look at, with hunger gnawing at your insides.

After getting the food, they would have to find seats and then eat. I wonder what they managed to see at the Park that day. We managed a decent list because the husband’s fine-tuned fast pass algorithm saw him rushing from one end to the other and picking up fast passes, so we could get the rides lined up. For the remaining part, we went for the less popular rides and had fun all the same.

Sometimes, divide and rule works.

7 seats

I witnessed something for the first time during our trip to Disneyland this time – the parks were filled to capacity and people were being turned away at the park entrance. It was a revelation of sorts to me because I didn’t know the park had a capacity to begin with. It was always such a sea of folks that I imagined those at the gates just stood there and sighed people through thinking of flood gates and drops in an ocean or whatever it is folks at park entrances think about. This historic day meant that the usually long lines were enough to sink the heart of the most optimistic soul.

I shall outline for you the process of buying some food on days such as this:
1) Position 1 member with a cell phone in hand at the back of a line that is nowhere near a food court. It is preferable if this person is a stamina gun and one who posesses a certain capacity to entertain and amuse the mind while standing in the queue. Reading the park map only gets you through 10 minutes (even if you memorize the names of all rides and restaurants – I checked), and the lines to get food snaked much longer that.
2) The other member with a cell phone must be one skilled enough to spot movement from a mile away and swoop down like a hawk. Hawks, if you study them, don’t swoop on whims. They observe, detect and decide on when to swoop on their prey. Looking around, reading subtle body language signals from other members already seated and eating. Constrained in every way by the burden of being a human being means no wings, no huge wing spans from which to soar and spy, bad eye-sight and not to mention the fact that we actually have bladders with needs while hawks probably don’t.

I functioned as the latter in our team of food gatherers. I had going for me what hawks probably didn’t. Optimism. I walked around aimlessly, smiling at people who made the mistake of making eye contact at me. Finding seating for a party of two on a day like this is a challenge, try doing it for seven and then one sees why the stomach is such an irascible thing to live with. I mean, cannot it eat for the day in the morning at the free breakfast buffet? It certainly behaved like it was. Ate like it was preparing for a spell of 24 hours in famine country and yet 5 hours later, the glutton was asking for more. Tut!

After what seemed like hours, I found 2 folks shifting their left buttock. I swooped – I’d gotten 2 seats. This is where Genghis Khan can take his lessons from me. Having acquired this piece of real estate, I looked around once again and found a couple chatting with fervour. People were leaving them alone since their plates seemed full. But I saw their plates were full enough, but not full enough to last till team member (1) got to the head of the line. I sat there looking bored and played with their little one amusing himself by throwing things on the floor from the table. I peek-a-boo-ed and gurgled. I don’t know whether Genghis Khan actually enjoyed conquering more lands, I enjoyed the process of playing with this child leaving the harried ones to eat in peace. They were so grateful that they actually got another chair for me and joined the tables together before leaving.

And that is how one gets seven seats together on a day that Walt Disney’s spectre gets turned away from the park.

That is also the story of us becoming Dislineophobes (yes, creativity takes a hit when attention is diverted to survival, and I couldn’t find the word for fear of queues)

Happy New Year Folks!

Are you a Terrorist?

I read an illuminating article about how to spot a terrorist. The article told me that if I saw somebody buying hydrogen peroxide at Home Depot, I must follow him and make sure he buys gas or garbage butoxide that are all elements in making explosive. If I am certain, then I must inform the police. This left me wondering on so many levels as to what these informative articles are supposed to achieve.

Aa far as the terrorist is concerned, he is given a checklist to steer clear of. This reminds  me of the time, one Senior Assistant commissioner of our town gave a talk that was designed to instruct and aid.

There was an increase in the number of robberies about town and the Assistant Commissioner’s sense of duty beckoned him till he could ignore it no more. He came on television. What we really expect  a man with a large moustache and formidable stomach wearing a police uniform to do is of course, just twirl it (the moustache I mean, not the tummy) impressively and hearten our souls by saying the whole police force is stumped by the problem and are working round the clock in solving it. Why? Even yesterday, three of his constables had tea at 3 a.m. in the neighborhood that the most recent robberies took place in, along with some men of questionable intentions. More tea stalls are being constructed in the vicinity to aid the robberies. That was all he needed to do.

Instead what did the gallant man do? He came on television and said, “I am going to give you some tips on how not to get robbed.” He started light – “Lock your door”, “Close your windows” kind of instructions and swiftly moved onto juicier topics. “Do not leave your valuables in steel cupboards under lock and key. That is where robbers look first. Take them and hide them in the kitchen. That is the place they will not think of checking.” he said and beamed rather freely at the audience. I don’t whether the man was expecting all television viewers to stand up in honour or what, but he beamed for a full minute after this gem.

This man, because of the graciousness of his position, was allowed to come and make a statement like that instead of being muted out of office. There was an uproar, because of course folks were hiding their valuables in the kitchen or elsewhere before this man came and told the robbers where to start. Even the extra tea stalls were quite unnecessary since the robbers just made themselves comfortable in the kitchen during the quest.

The intention as always is good. If only his force had asked the men at the tea stall whether they were robbers, he could have come on television a victorious man, a man who knew what he was facing. Please head on over to this link to see what I mean.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1336571/Terrorism-Can-really-stop-bomber-asking-Are-terrorist.html

This article about security checks in Israel interested me. Reminds me that we often forget the direct and obvious. Very few people can lie convincingly when posed the question, “Are you a terrorist?” Turns out that Israel has been using this simple method to weed out potential terrorists with remarkable results. Full body scans can reveal articles of questionable intent, but not the intent. People to people questioning can expose intent.

Santa Sharpens Memory

The past week has been a busy one for Santa. He was supposed to fly to India to meet the President from Finland. On the way, he decided to see all the good children of this school in Dubai where the niece and nephew study, because they have been so good and reward them. There has been much excitement and chatter. The maps have been consulted multiple times by even those allergic to  Geography teachers to route the map from Finland to India via Dubai.


Seeing Santa in the corridors of your own school must be exciting. I can still remember being about a knee high with no front teeth sitting in a hall waiting for Santa to come. What? After he visits the President of India, he takes a detour down to the South and graces the Lena School corridors for those children have been good too. Duh. I remember sitting around waiting eagerly for Santa to arrive – I was seated along the corner, and this particular Santa, came strewing chocolates and sweets all around to general mayhem. Thinking back, I think he bore a remarkable resemblance to the woodcutter of the school. Anyway, the point is: while he was creating joy all around and throwing sweets, he also poked my eye, which had my eye watering, and my little mind up in moral chaos.

You see, all my life up until then, I’d been told that if you lied, or did not eat, or did something that was to discredit the name of the honorable clan from whence you sprout, God will poke your eyes. It was true, I had borrowed a sharpener from a boy in my class, and promptly lost it. I was in the process of honing several lies to tell him, one of the options being stout denial, another feigning surprise at the existence of sharpeners and the like. Still wondering how to break the news in short, for this boy was known to have attained fame by eating a worm. What if, his revenge was shoving one down my throat?  I hate worms not considering that they aren’t particularly esculent. Technically, I hadn’t lied yet, but maybe God knew that I was thinking of lying and sent Santa as a precaution.

I don’t know how the world rates North Korea allegedly having an arsenal of nuclear weapons and attacking South Korea and the world waiting to see how US would react, but it was definitely not as serious as the problem I faced. Soon after Santa left, a hurried meeting was called for. My best friends rose to the occasion as usual, and we all agreed that it had been a sign. The best thing to do was tell him the truth, and if he runs after me with a worm, one friend said she would take on the task of bringing a teacher on the premises by any means known to her.

I don’t exactly remember the end to this story – I just remember it being a huge anti-climax. It was all quite simple really. I was not chased down corridors with a worm in his hand, I know that for sure. So, it may be that Santa gave him a new sharpener as a gift and he forgot about the one I lost for all I care. But I do remember asking my father if I could have a sharpener for my very own in the sweetest tone I could don, simply fluttered with ‘pleases’ and ‘thank yous’.

I am sure it tickled the parent to have such a polite request for a sharpener, but these moral epilogues drained one.