Apparently, Life is unfair. I was shocked to find out. I always thought that Life came with a lifetime warranty. Unfortunately, as it turns out, that isn’t true.

When I was little, I thought everyone got turns getting first rank in class. I first started getting suspicious when the same girl got the first rank for the whole year in 3rd standard. But when I didn’t get my first rank in 6th standard also, I thought something was wrong, so I went and asked my teacher.

Me: “Ma’am, when will I get the first rank?”
Teacher: “Eh? You want to get the first rank? That’ll be the day. Hehehee”
Me: “When will my turn come?”
Teacher: “If you want the first rank, why don’t you study?”
Me: “WHAT? I HAVE TO STUDY TO GET FIRST RANK?”

After that episode, I permanently gave up the dream of getting a first rank. But I still had faith that Life was fair.

My faith was fundamentally shaken when in college, one day after the internal exams, we were, as usual, arguing about marks with the lecturer.

Me: “But this answer is exactly correct. You have to give me full marks for this question.”
Lecturer: “That’s not what the text book says. The book says ‘public static void’ is the signature of the main function. You’ve written ’static public’ instead of ‘public static’. No marks for you”
Me: “But it’s the exact same thing. The ORDER doesn’t matter. YOU ARE WRONG!”
Lecturer: “DON’T RAISE YOUR VOICE! I will call the principal”
Me: “But my answer is correct. Go check with any compiler. You have to give me marks!”

As I was standing there, negotiating my marks like haggling over the price of tomatoes with a street vendor, a pretty girl walked up to the lecturer.

Pretty Girl : “Sir, it seems there has been a mistake in my marks. Can you please increase the marks for this question?”
Lecturer: “Why?”
Pretty Girl: “Sir, because you are a fair and ethical person and because if you give me 1 more mark, then I’ll get 25, and I’ll be very thankful to you, and I’ll tell everyone how nice a person you are”
Lecturer: “Well, OK. Here, 25-on-25.”
Pretty Girl: “Thank you so much sir!”
Me: “WHAT? YOU GAVE HER MARKS AND YOU DIDN’T GIVE ME MARKS? HOW CAN YOU DO THIS?”
Lecturer: “Shut up and go sit down.”

Eventually, I didn’t get the extra marks. The pretty girl later told me that you have to be nice and polite when you ask for favors. Give the other person what they want. In this case, the Lecturer wanted some respect, and that’s what she gave him. The Lecturer didn’t want to be told he’s an idiot for not knowing simple stuff.

This, apparently, is called “street smarts”. Interestingly, I don’t have any of it, but some pretty girls seem to have lots of this stuff. Have you noticed how they seem to get most of what they want?

Anyway, I ended up marrying that pretty girl, but she promised not to use any tricks to manipulate me like she did that teacher in college.

Well, I have to go now and drop my wife to her friend’s place, pick up her clothes from the laundry and arrange for dinner. See ya’ll tomorrow.

Wait a minute…

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