I get back from work one day and notice that the wife is in a very good mood. She’s singing and all, and generally in a happy mood. This instinctively puts me on the defensive, I smell a trap. But even after some time, when I don’t get assigned to cut tomatoes, I’m begin to think that she really is happy. She’s probably looking forward to something. Her general humming is making me very nervous, and I’m trying to rack my brain trying to figure out any obvious causes that might make her so happy.

None come to mind. She’s still humming, and asks me if I want any coffee. Oh my God! Something is definitely up. Did I promise her something? Why is she so happy with me? What have I done right? I’m trying to search all recent memory in my brain, but still nothing. Did I promise to watch a movie with her this weekend? Noo… I certainly wouldn’t do that! Aaaarrrghhhh! The suspense is killing me. I decide to try to “fish out” the information from her.

Me: “So……”
She looks up and looks at me, smiling.

Me: “Life’s all good?”
Wife: “Yes, yes! Very good! We’ve come a long way, eh?”

Long way? From where? Her office is only 5 minutes away.

Me: “Well, if you take into account the traffic and the buffaloes, the office does seem far away!”
Wife: “Hahaha!… You’re funny… That’s not what I meant, silly!”

She Laughed at my Joke!?!?! Something is not right! I’m starting to sweat now!

Me: (laughing nervously): “Heh heh! Yeah… So… where have we come?”

Wife: “Soon, its going to be a year! One year! It seems like yesterday when…”

What is she talking about? Just as I’m pondering over what the hell happened a year ago, the epic light of dawnling realization shines on me. Oh, crap! She means our wedding anniversary! How could I forget!

I have a tragic flaw in that when I’m thinking, my face becomes twisted in a weird way, and my neck buckles to make my face look slightly upwards, as if looking into the sky. Its a dead giveway that I’m in a conference call with my brain. The wife has learnt to pick this up, and has probably realised that I’ve forgotten our anniversary.

Wife: “You do remember, its our Anniversary this week, right?”
Me: “Of course, yes yes…. I remember! It’s our Anniversary on the….”

Is it the 5th or the 6th? Oh, gosh! My mind has blanked out. I think it was the fifth! No, but I was on leave since the 1st, which was one week before the wedding, so the wedding must have been on the 6th. But I remember the wedding hall was booked from the 5th. Oh man! Oh man! I have to say something soon…My brain instructs my vocal chords to say fifth!

Me: “on the fiiiiiiiiffffffff…..”

The wife raises one eyebrow. Oh, no! fifth is the wrong answer! Damage Control! Emergency Emergency! Abort instruction! Override!

Me: “fiiiffffff….a.aaaa.aaaaaachchooooooooo! AAaaahh! Excuse me!”
Wife is giving me The Look.

Me: “Anniversary is on the sixth!”

Wife: “Well, at least you remembered! I hope you’ve got me a thoughtful gift too!”

Whew! That was a close one. If I’d gotten the date of the anniversary wrong, that too on our very first anniversary, I’d be made to remember it for the rest of my life. Lucky escape! But wait! What’s the thing about the thoughtful gift?!? No matter… Disaster avoided for now…

Me: “Oh yeah yeah! I’ve bought a thoughtful gift! Its so thoughtful, so thoughtful that it’ll leave you thinking! Haha!”
Wife: “Well, that’s good! I’m so looking forward to the sixth!”
Me: “Oh yeah, me too! I’ll bet my thoughtful gift kicks your thoughtful gift’s ass. You’ve got serious competition lady! You’d better come up with some spectacular gift for me to match my super-duper-ultra-thoughtful gift!”

Regular readers will immediately recognize that this is my super-inflated ego speaking. I had absolutely no idea of ANY gift, leave alone a thoughtful one, but that hadn’t stopped my big ego from making unsubstantiated claims. This was going to get me intro trouble!

Now, where am I going to find a thoughtful gift!?!?!

To Be Continued…

• 16 Comments

You’re all probably wondering why I’ve not been posting on the blog for the last couple of weeks. Well, it was because I’ve been holed up in deep meditation, pondering  one of my deepest religious principles - How to avoid exercising. As ya’ll probably know, I’ve been under tremendous pressure recently to start doing SOME exercise. Not satisfied with my current strategies, I’ve been trying to cook up a fool-proof, permanent strategy that will solve this problem once and for all.

And I’ve succeeded!

That’s right folks! I’ve now come up with a spectacularly brilliant strategy that will save me the pain of exercise for a lifetime! And I’m going to tell you how it works!

The strategy is centered around the somewhat unreasonable assumption that the pharmaceutical companies will soon invent a pill that will cure all diseases all at once. I think this is inevitable, don’t you? Soon, they’ll have a pill to reduce cholesterol, improve muscle strength, reduce fat, increase attractiveness to the opposite sex and make taking baths outdated. I did a careful statistical analysis of past trends, and I predict that this pill will be invented by March 19th, 2018. That’s close enough in the future, so its all good.

So, lets review the strategy so far. A magic pill will be invented that will make all the people that are exercising now look like fools. But lets say that this doesn’t happen. I don’t see how, but let us, for arguments’ sake, assume that this simple-enough pill doesn’t get invented. Then what?

This where the brilliance of my strategy comes in. To balance out the risk of not inventing the magic pill, I’m planning to short the stocks of pharmaceutical companies in the long run. Selling short is a technique of stock-manipulation that will make you money if the stock falls. So, if the pharma companies make the magic pill, then I buy it and become healthy. If they don’t make the pill, I short the stocks and become rich. And as we all know, being rich is somewhat better than being healthy, because when you are rich, you can buy yatchs and IPL teams and that sort of stuff, but all you can do when you are healthy is eat apples, because, you know, you don’t want to become unhealthy. It’s a brilliant fail proof plan! The ideal win-win situation.

I’m planning to patent this brilliant idea, so if you plan to use it, you need to send me some money. Rs. 5000 only. Think about it, you can’t get a more brilliant plan. As they say,

Short-sell stocks and hedge your health against exercise,
Become healthy or wealthy, but certainly not wise!

• 6 Comments