Wifey, Owls, and an Afternoon at Dilli Haat!

Wifey loves owls.

I said nothing different to her last week when I saw her ogling at an owl in Dilli Haat.

“You love owls,” I remarked.

She turned and considered me for a moment. She had that contemplative look on her face – she’s never told this to me clearly, but I assume her contemplation is anchored around the moot question, why did I marry this goofball?

“What?” I asked, hoping that I was wrong, but her answer confirmed that I had hit the bull’s eye.

“Why else did I marry you?” she answered with what appeared to me a tortured smile.

 I was right. She was indeed reflecting upon her reason to marry me. Wait, what did she say? Did she mean to say that she married me because she loves owls? What doe that mean?

Before your imagination runs wild, know that I don’t own an owlery. She WAS saying that I was indeed owl-like!

Every Indian knows that an owl isn’t regarded as a wise bird in India. In fact, calling someone an owl is an insult. “Ullu,” the diminutive name for this majestic bird, dumbs it down to “stupid,” and “Ullu ka pattha,” which translates to “son of owl,” adds another huge dollop of disdain to this insult.

So when wifey likened me to an owl, she wasn’t trying to say that I was wise and magnificent…

I thanked my stars that Mom wasn’t with us, or she would’ve transformed into a fire-breathing dragon upon wifey’s attempt to slander her precious son’s reputation. (Mom and only Mom has the right to call me “ullu,” which she does, every second day.)

I had only a moment to decide.

 Sulk or bail?

I bailed.

I steered her to the glass artist’s table, where he sat crafting these little creatures out of differently colored glass rods, lifted one of his glass owls (it was as big as wifey’s thumb,) and asked him to craft one for wifey.

Wifey sat there watching him twist and turn the glass rods into the owl of her dreams, and I felt the shackles loosen. I looked around and realized how much I had been missing out on.

“Can I have another owl?” she cooed.

“Of course,” I replied, my eyes surfing the place.

A little later, I heard her again. “I just love those penguins, can I have them too?”

“Of course,” I said as I continued to surf the waves of my new found thought temporary freedom.

After about half an hour, or who knows, an hour perhaps, she rose.

The surfing metaphor reminded me of another, a creature of the Norwegian lore, the Kraken monster, rising from the depths of the ocean…

The Kraken Rises.

So she rose and approached as I scrambled to capture the last few colorful images that would burn to ashes if wifey’s askance glance happened see me purveying them. I succeeded in appearing like I was all the while attentively looking at her.

“Thousand rupees,” She smiled at me.

“Ok,” I said as the figure of thousand sunk in and my euphoria receded faster than the water of a tide ebbing because the Kraken monster decided to breathe in.

When we returned, Mom was waiting.

For some strange reason, seeing Mom right after visualizing the Kraken made me think of the Medusa.

“She bought some owls,” it tumbled out.

Mom burst out laughing.

“Tere hote hue bi usnu ullu len di zaroort pai gayi?”

(“She has you, still she needed to buy another owl?”)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Advertisements

Quirky Snarky Malarkey is way better than Murky Snarky Malarkey!

2018 was murky.

Wifey agrees. Mom doesn’t.

As always, they continue to exist in the delicately balanced state of perfect disagreement. 

Things’ve been happening, but I had been too busy looking over my shoulder to observe and appreciate – until recently, but a few days ago, I visited Dilli Haat – just wifey and I, sans Mom and Dad for company…and the quirky sparks flew once again.

So ladies and a gentlemen, tomorrow I shall present, “The Owls of Wifey,” later this month, I’ll introduce you to my new acquaintance, the tall dark handsome shop-owner Manish and the dandy dog Diddle.

Wishing all my blogging-friends, readers and visitors, a beautiful New Year!

Happy New Year 2019 🙂

“They won’t Remember you,” said Wifey.

“They won’t remember you,” quipped wifey when she saw me login to Facebook.

“Who?” I asked, pretending that I hadn’t understood. Of course, I had. I’ve known her for close to fifteen years now, and for twelve of those, I’ve woken up next to her. In the first three years, I had only seen and heard what she had wanted me to see and hear. Those were the days when I hadn’t known that her yawn could put an alligator to shame, and I had no idea that she had the magical ability to transform herself into a fire-breathing dragon, at will.

“Your online friends and the followers of your Quirky, Snarky, Malarkey. They would have forgotten you by now. Don’t waste your time writing another blog-post,” she said. She spoke with such an air of finality that I almost accepted her verdict.

But then I saw something that made me puff up my chest and take the plunge…once again.

The FB page of the QSM magazine had gained about ninety new followers. It looked like people liked the page better without my irksome presence lurking in its shadows of my FB, Twitter, and my Blog!

So…despite wifey’s unholy predications, I’m back. I’ve got to tell you about a lot of things that’ve been happening in India, and in my house – including the Janani vs. Janaani debate (that would Mother vs. Wife debate,) that Mom started and Wifey finished.

O’ Cockroaches of Shatabdi, Thank you!

We were sitting at the right side of the coach, where there are three seats to a row. We had a window seat, which was grabbed by wifey the moment we boarded, and a middle-seat. I too love the window-seat, but since we got married, that seat has belonged to wifey. My requests for it were always brushed aside, sometimes a little rudely too, until recently, when I gave up trying.

After the train started…(Please read rest of the post “O’ Cockroaches of Shatabdi, Thank you!” at the ROFLwithQSM Blog)

 

From Godliness to Worldiness and back in 15 Minutes!

As a rule, I don’t eavesdrop.
As a rule, I am not judgmental.
But this morning, I broke my rules!

The First Round

I was in the park, walking the well-trodden track around it, cogitating over the age-old question – why mothers smother their children, when I turned the corner and came upon four middle-aged ladies singing a hymn – they sat upon the benches with their feet tucked neatly under them, singing and swaying – praying to Lord Shiva and his consort, the Goddess Parvati (Some of our gods and goddesses are happily married couples – such as Shiva and Parvati, Laxmi and Vishnu, and a few others, whose names wifey would be able to recall quite swiftly, if asked. But I am not going to ask.)

Anyway, so that was my first round around the park.

The Second Round

Then I passed them again, and it became clear to me that one of the ladies, the one equipped with the shrillest voice, was the leader of the group. She was preaching to the other ladies, her wide-eyed and innocent followers, and they were listening intently.

“so you see, it’s all moh-maya, ji (material things). If you go to a saint who lives in a hut and ask him about his wellbeing, he would say, mauj hai! (Life is fun!) but if you ask a rich man, he’ll bore you with the stories of his trials and tribulations. So you see, it’s all in your heart. If your heart is pure, nothing will bother you – neither your neighbor’s new car nor his wife’s new jewelry.”

The Third Round

The third round brought me to them again. The preacher had now finished preaching and there had been a significant drop in her decibel levels. She was now almost whispering, and the other ladies were leaning towards her, trying to catch every pearl that dropped from their leader’s lips.

“If I hadn’t wheedled it out of their maid, nobody would have learned about it, ji. Their son has landed a very high paying job in a multinational company, and he is an engineer from some faltu-sa (useless) college – so they might be lying about it for all we know, but that woman didn’t even have the courtesy to tell us. Perhaps she thought we would ask her to distribute sweets. What a cheapskate, hain ji? (Isn’t she?)”

The Fourth Round

On my fourth round, I came upon them again. Once again, the four of them had pulled their feet up and tucked them neatly under their bottoms. Sitting there thus, with their eyes closed, their heads oscillating sideways, they were chanting once again, praying to Lord Ram, counting the number of times they took his name.

Thirty-one Ram Ram, Thirty-two Ram Ram, Thirty-three…

Hai Ram!

 

The Great Indian Pothole through a Quirky Indian’s Lenses.

In the life of an Indian, a pothole isn’t just a hole in the road – it is a traditional concept that dreams are woven around.

How?

Read Pothole, Pothole, thank you for saving me! to appreciate the positive influence of potholes on our daily lives.

Please don’t comment here…comment on my ROFLwithQSM blog – so that we can have some Quirky Snarky Malarkey with Hot Chai and pakodas.

Bidesi (Foreign) Indophiles might not be able to appreciate the goodness of Chai and pakodas (not pagodas,) without further explanation…so here’s one. (Note that this explanation is by me alone – wifey didn’t help at all.)

Pakodas are delicious Indian snacks prepared by covering a wide variety of veggies in chickpea-flour paste, dunking them into boiling oil and frying them until they turn crisp. These awesome snacks are then devoured with sauces and pickles, and washed down with Chai (hot milk-tea.)

PS: Just happened to hum the song…
I: Ek garam chai ki pyali ho…aur usko… (If only there was a cup of hot tea…and a…)
Wifey: pilane wala ho?! (a gentleman who’d prepare it for me?)

Reminding you once again…this isn’t the post. Read the post by clicking the following link:

Pothole, Pothole, thank you for saving me!

#ROFLwithQSM friends!

 

Diaper-changing Dads or Mansplainers?

When Snapdeal published their advertisement lauding diaper-changing dads, I am sure they had no intention of reigniting the mansplaining debate in my house. I don’t blame them, for in all probability their advertisement was visualized by a mansplaining ignorant man…

“Mansplaining Mania Spills Over in an Advertisement on Father’s Day!” on the QSM Blog is the second part of my mansplaining debacle, and I hope that it marks the end of this series of unfortunate events.

Click Snarky to see the Mansplaining cartoon!

If you haven’t yet followed my new blog, please follow it – because that’s where all the new posts go. There’s a blue button in the right sidebar – just click it…and no, I am requesting, not mansplaining.

Mansplaining Defined and Purposefully Explained.

Just posted: Mansplaining? Let me tell you what it is, to share my recent learning experience under wifey’s tutelage.

It’s on my new blog – and if you aren’t following it, you are missing out on all the Quirky Snarky Malarkey that I’ll be dishing out in the future. Not mansplaining, just requesting. Visit ROFLwithQSM.com/blog/ and click the blue Follow button in the right sidebar. See you on the other side 😀

Click the image to reach the QSMwithROFL.com website.

#ROFLwithQSM

My Dear Blog-Followers…please follow the New Blog.

because the Quirky (Anand) Snarky (the crow)  Malarkey (Anandhotep) of this blog, is now moving to my new blog.

Please go to my New Blog and click the blue Follow button at the top of the right side bar, because

blogging isn’t the same without you!

says…Anandhotep…

says…Snarky…

and says…Anand.

Thank you for being my reason to blog.

We Men are just a Hygiene Factor in Their Lives!

“Hum saale bas ek hygiene factor hain, inki lives mein! (We fools, we are just a hygiene factor in their lives!)”  Rohan griped, brushing his hand over the balding patch on his head for the umpteenth time, making me wonder if his constant attention to that patch was making it grow faster…

Click this link, Read it on the ROFLwithQSM blog, and please follow that blog if you haven’t already. Here’s your opportunity to meet a Tall, Dark, and Handsome Police Officer Rohan Dahiya, and offer him your shoulder to whine upon.

The Comment Issue on the ROFLwithQSM blog is now resolved!

The comments issue is resolved!

😀

I figured out that it was because the too-good-to-be-true Zero Spam plugin was interfering with the processing of comments. The reason was that it doesn’t work with the Jetpack engine, which takes care of everything else, including the comment form. Between the two evils (letting a little spam into comments held for moderation and letting go of everything else including stats,) I chose to keep Jetpack and bid goodbye to Zero Spam.

If you have a self-hosted blog and fall for the perfection that Zero Spam offers, be careful. Your commenters with get a message, “There was a problem processing your comment.”

Now the Comments are working fine. I’m dying to know what you think about:

Mushrooms, Dog-pee, and that Heavenly Smell!

Anandhotep has sent me to apologize to everyone who tried leaving a comment and then helped me with my shenanigans, as I tried to figure out. THANKS 😀

 

 

Mushrooms, Dog-pee, and Mrs. Chaddha!

Some people don’t like mushrooms.

Some people don’t like dogs.

Some people who don’t like dogs, also don’t like mushrooms.

Mrs. Chaddha, our next floor neighbor falls in the last category, and I discovered it this morning…

Dear Blog-followers, please click the following button to follow my QSM blog on its own website ROFLwithQSM.com.

Follow The QSM Blog in your WordPres Reader 
//

No Thank You, No Sorry, Hain ji?

That’s what Indians say…that between friends, there’s no Thank You, no Sorry, but I’m going to change myself.

I’m sorry that I must send you to my other blog to read my posts, and in advance, I am thanking you to follow my new self-hosted blog.

Anandhotep has already moved there, and so have wifey, mom, and the kittens. The street dogs will be following us there soon, and they’d be followed by the omniscient dog-hater Mr. Goyal and his know-nothing wife. We are expecting Mrs. Chaddha to move there too, and my relatives have all been informed that if they want to impose their presence on us, they must visit us at the new address.

Let us not drift away. Follow us all at the new blog.

Anand’s Parodies and Humor – now on a new blog!

Wifey wants a house that she can call her home. All these years of moving from one rented place to another has taken its toll on everything in our house. The fridge lost its leg on our third move and has been nicknamed Long John Silver since then, the TV has now been replaced by an extra computer monitor that we had been lugging around for the last six years, the couches lead to ouches when you sit one them too long – everything in our house has suffered because we don’t have a house of our own, and all these things curse me day and night for what I’ve put them through.

I could tell you Mom’s views on the matter, but why repeat what you already know. Instead let me tell you about the new blog, one which wifey led me to create.

My new blog is: The QSM Blog on the ROFLwithQSM.com site.

Please update your bookmarks 😀

You can also click the snarky crow to get there. Please update your bookmarks. I’d love to see you there.

But how did it happen?

A couple of weeks ago, wifey skewered me with a pointy look in her kajal-lined eyes. “I get it that you can’t afford to buy a house, but can’t you even afford to buy a site on the web?”
“You don’t buy a website, you rent it,” I countered her slight with logic.
“But wouldn’t it be yours until you continued paying the rent, and that rent, at least, won’t burn a hole in your pocket.” she bowled a googly, right into my ego. ( While the Cricket-Crazed Indian would know what a googly is, it would clean-bowl the American readers, so for their benefit, a googly, or “wrong’un”, is a delivery which looks like a normal leg-spinner but actually turns towards the batsmen, like an off-break, rather than away from the bat. –  Source: BBC.)

And so I booked a site, hosted it, and started the new blog there. Do visit and follow that blog too. The intention is to fill it up with all sorts of quirky, snarky, malarkey…so that we all go ROFLwithQSM.

Issue #4 of The QSM Magazine is now on Stands!

The Subscribers of the QSM Magazine have received its PDF in their inboxes, and those fond of reading it online can now read it here.

I apologize for giving you the fright.
Please don’t fall off your chair.
Yes, I’m still around.
I had been here all this while, running chores for that crabby old mummy! I still am here, while he’s gone back to catch-up on his sleep. Lucky chap!

In fact, Anandhotep had been running so hard to meet the May 31st deadline for the QSM Magazine that he ran us all in the ground. Now that he is gone, it’s time to bring you Issue #4. I hope that it brings you laughter and joy. (While Anandhotep is stingy with praise, he was seen laughing his bandages off when he was editing the stories for this issue.)

Click to read the magazine on ISSUU.com

And do stop over at QSM Magazine’s new home on the web: http://ROFLwithQSM.com to download all the previous issues of the magazine. Ghar aaoge tussi, to gifts to dena banta hai ji! (If you visit our house, we can’t let you leave empty-handed – can we?)

Click the image to reach the QSMwithROFL.com website.

Also stop over at the happening Facebook page of the QSM Magazine.

Click the image to hop over to QSM’s Facebook page and like it 😀

Thank you, friends. The QSM Magazine wouldn’t have been here, had it not been for you.

THANK YOU!

A Special post for my Blogging Friends

My Blogger Friends,

This post is for you.

As you must’ve noticed, my posting schedule has gone haywire recently, and my visiting behavior is even worse.  Let me explain.

• For the last 3 weeks, I’ve been working on publishing the next issue of the QSM magazine. Trust me, if that were the only thing I had been working on, life would been easy, but there are two projects that I am pitching for with little hope of any of those coming my way.
• Yet, if those were the only two things I had been working on, life would still be livable, but there are 4-5 hours long power cuts, and when the day temperature hits 115 F, there’s little motivating you to create silly Powerpoint presentations.
• I’d still sweat it out, I’d get up at 3 AM instead of 4 AM and try to get things done, and life would still trundle along, but then Mom is here.  She’s back – the commander of the indomitable army that’s made entirely of her, and when Mom and Wifey are both in the same house, you get plucked, marinated, and roasted.

And roasted ducks don’t blog.

With that litany of excuses, I’ll attempt to evoke your gentle and forgiving nature, and request you to overlook my tardy online behavior. Soon after the magazine is published, I’ll be back to stalking your blogs and leaving some quirky but mostly snarky remarks. This also means that the QSM magazine will hit your inboxes soon (I won’t put my foot in my mouth once again by providing a date, but it’s going to be very very soon. Just don’t write me off yet 😀

And then, there’s something coming up for all of us. Piyusha Vir, the quirky Editor of QSM’s Facebook page has taken the onus of that announcement upon herself, so I’ll leave it to her, but from my viewpoint, it’s rather biiiiig!

I’ll be back with more…soon. “Until then,” as our news-anchors say, “stay here, don’t go anywhere, don’t do anything useful, because I’ll be back with some sweet, sour, and spicy, quirky, snarky, malarkey!”

Do visit the Facebook page of the magazine and Like it because it’s utterly bitterly delicious 😀

 

497 marks out of 500! What lies ahead?

Delhi girl Sukirti Gupta has set a new standard for examinees India-wide. Now parents have a new bench-mark for their kids, and those prepping up for taking the board exams next year now have a new kind of nightmare – they now see menacing fours and nines and sevens in their dreams, and then they wake up screaming.

But all this fades in comparison to the resulting benefits. For instance, expect businesses to benefit from Sukirti’s feat. I also believe that in future all this may lead to stronger familial bonding in India’s already bonded-by-fevicol families.

Motivational Products for Children:

I hear that some stationery manufacturers are planning to recruit a phoren-ka-cartoonist (foreign cartoonist) to create a cartoon likeness of Sukirti so that they may manufacture geometry boxes and notebooks with the cartoon on top with a callout near her head with a motivational anecdote from her life. For instance, “I used to wake up at 2 in the morning, walk straight into the bathroom, and dunk my head in a bucket of ice water. If I could do it, you can do it too!”

Advertisements of Coaching Institutes:

I’ve also come to know that coaching institutes are thinking of roping in Sukirti’s look-alikes for advertising their offerings. The copy of such ads could read, “I studied at Tunkuram Institute and got a near-perfect score,” or “waste neither light nor life by studying hard, when you can study smart – enroll yourself in Pinkuram Institute to become the next topper!”

Names of the Indian Newborns:

If it is not already happening to little newborn babies all across the country, I am confident that it will begin shortly. Parents will now begin to name their daughter Sukirti and their sons Sukirtan, in the hope that eighteen years later,  The Times of India will publish their picture with their naak ka baal (hair of their nose – as in their blue-eyed child,) parivar ka gaurav (honor of the family,) and khaandaan ki shaan (pride of their dynasty) – in which they’ll be seen proudly proclaiming how on the chromosomal level they were the ones responsible for those 490-some marks out of 500.

So you see, it is just the beginning of a grading-apocalypse. But I’ll leave a more in-depth analysis of the situation to Arnab Goswami and speak about matters closer to the QSM Magazine:

Last week Piyusha Vir, the Wandering Soul of the blogging world, decided to take matters into her own capable hands and shunted me out of the Facebook Page Management business. I accepted her decision and handed the page over to her. Now she is the editor of the page and in the last 5 days, the page likes have already crossed 50! I’d like to thank her for not just lending me a helping hand, but also for placing trust in QSM’s potential.

If you are on Facebook and you haven’t liked the QSM Magazine’s Facebook page yet, please do so now. A lot of good stuff is waiting to happen there 😀

 

The QSM Magazine – Anandhotep makes a Splash in the Rajma Bowl.

The May-June issue is still not on stands, and trust me when I tell you that the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of that twit Anandhotep. I sent him the air-tickets; I emptied my cupboard so that he could store his stinky old bandages in it; I ordered figs and grapes online; I cleared the bed-box for him to curl in after work – but that pinhead didn’t arrive in time; instead he couriered me a scarab with his message engraved upon its underbelly.

“I’m not in the right mood,” the hieroglyphics read. (Here’s the actual reproduction of the hieroglyphics thanks to the online English to Egyptian Hieroglyphics translator at: http://quizland.com/hiero.mv)

That was the message the bonehead sent me, leaving me high and dry, wondering how I’d face my audience.

Not in the right mood?!

What kind of excuse was that? What was the bugger up to?!

I had a bad feeling about the whole thing. For about three weeks, I received no communication from him and I sat twiddling my thumbs, wondering how the magazine would survive without that moody and irresponsible bucket of bones at the helm of affairs.

And then, suddenly, with no prior intimation, he materialized right there on top of the dining table, in the bowl of rajma (kidney beans for the Indophile foreigner,) splashing and thrashing about, splattering us all red and maroon.

“Here I am!” he said, pulling his rajma-dripping self out of the bowl. Mom looked at him with disdain – a lot of things repulse her but nothing – repeat – nothing shocks her, so even this didn’t; Dad grunted indifferently; wifey first shrieked then recognized him and shot her sweetest smile his way. (I don’t like the way she smiles at that frizzy frumpy fool; if I didn’t know that she was in love with the neat and natty me, I’d have thought there was something brewing between those two.)

I did what I did. At first I sulked. Then I complained. Next I tried to extract a promise from him – that he won’t leave me in a lurch ever again. I’m still not sure if he made that promise – those bandages hide his expressions, but I am sure that he’s going to be around for a while. After all, he wouldn’t have lugged that humungous suitcase half-way across the globe, if he didn’t mean to stay.

You know that he knows the way around the house, and wifey follows him around like a love-sick puppy – so even before it could all sink in, I found his suitcase emptied and stowed away and three sets of stinky old and ragged bandages hanging in my wardrobe. The mummy itself was seated in my seat, typing away furiously.

This of course, means that QSM shall soon be hitting the stands. Now that Anandhotep is here, I can rest easy.

 

Stroll…Stroller…Road-roller!

Stroll? Hmmm.
Stroll? I think I’m getting an idea.
Stroll?…wait, I’ve got to switch on my computer!

“Kya stroll te stroller da siyappa laga rakha hai?” (Why are you raising such a hue and cry about stroll and stroller?) Mom’s booming voice caught me unawares and I toppled out of my chair.

“Stroll Mummy Ji, Stroll,” murmured wifey in a tone that could’ve meant two things – one, she wanted Mom to disappear and go for a “stroll” in that “go, take a walk”, dismissive kind of meaning, or she could’ve been clarifying my statement to Mom in an effort to ensure that Mom didn’t cast one of her witchy spells to change the flavor of our conversation entirely, by bringing in the apparently innocuous stroller into it. With wifey you can never say. I stole a sideways glance to see which meaning Mom decided to hear. With Mom too, you can never say.

Fortunately for wifey, and unfortunately for me, Mom decided to focus on the second meaning.

“Stroller? Arey tum dono se kuch ho to stroller ka munh dekhen hum!” (Stroller? If only the two of you were capable of doing something, I’d turn fortunate enough to see the face of a stroller.)

“Mom,” I interjected, “let us not go there again please.”

“Go where, puttar (son)?” Mom shot me a glance that was quicker and sharper than a Rampuri knife and continued, “if only I had a stroller with your son in it to give me company, I’d go somewhere. I could show my face in the neighborhood. I could boast about my grandson…at least.”

The “at least” was a well-thought-of-afterthought – a barb that was almost invisible – hidden in the tail of the scorpion-statement she flung at me.

“Mom,” I repeated – trying to sound calm as my temper began to rise, “I said: let us not go there. Whether or not we get a stroller would depend on a lot of things – not just your need to boast.”

“To main deenge maarti hoon? (So you are saying that I boast?) Is this why I brought you in this world? Is this why I carried you in my womb for nine months and seven days? Did I do all that so that today you tell me that I boast?”

“Mummy ji,” wifey intervened. I shuddered inwardly. She had the knack to make worsen the worst. “Mummy ji,” she said, “he didn’t mean to say that, he only meant that we aren’t ready for a child yet.”

I covered my face with my hands and waited for the inevitable!

“Ma-bete ke beech taang mat ada,” (Literal translation: Don’t stick your foot between mother and son,) Mom blasted her, “go into the kitchen and make a cup of tea for me. For all I know, something’s wrong with you!” She then turned to me and continued, “This is what happens when you pick a girl from a different community – no strollers, not even one! Everyone gets one…everyone! Even the newly married modern couples – they go on their honeymoon, and the first thing they buy after they come back, is a stroller. All I ever wanted from you was a blue stroller…but you never think of your mother’s feelings, do you?”

“Mom, should I go to the market and buy you a blue stroller? Will that make you happy?” I asked her.

She stopped her litany, then riveted me to my seat using her characteristic unblinking stare. “You don’t mean it, do you?” she asked.

“Of course, I do. If a stroller makes you happy, I’ll buy one for you. I might even get an off-season discount if I bought it right away.”

She looked at me. She knew something was fishy. I never gave in that easily.

And then she understood.

She didn’t go for a stroll; I didn’t buy a stroller. I just faithfully reproduced the whole incident for my readers. 

This post is written in response to the daily post prompt Stroll.

Beached!

“If the word “beach” makes you think of “beached”, you must get your head examined!” exclaimed the lady who in the first place was responsible for my thinking up the word “beached” when I saw the daily post prompt “beach.”

The fact that she must watch me surreptitiously is one of the reasons why I feel beached in a house that’s at least a thousand miles away from any beach.

“And why?” I ask my jailor, swiveling my chair to face her, “why do you think that I shouldn’t have thought of the word “beached”?”

“Because “beached” means “stranded”, “marooned”, “wrecked”, “abandoned”, “left high and dry!”

I get up with the speed of light, find my wallet and my car-keys, and rush out. She’s still right behind me. At the door, I turn. Her face morphs into an island with a single palm tree, under which I see myself, watching the wreckage of the ship that I used to call my life; and her nose twists itself and transforms into a question mark. She still wants to know.

“Because of you,” I answer, ducking and scooting out of the door, and the vase crashes against the wall.

I run down the stairs, skipping alternate steps, get into the car, and start the car.

It doesn’t start.

I try again.

Instinctively I look up and see her watching me triumphantly. Suddenly and miraculously, I acquire the ability to lip-read.

 

I think you know what I read.

Written in response to today’s prompt “Beach.”