Pet Peeves

• Hearing “How was your weekend?” on Monday mornings.
  If you must know, about all it involved was three loads of laundry and some light cleaning.

• Returning troops who still say “Eye-raq.”
  Obviously, the trip wasn’t much of a learning experience, was it?
  

• People who start telephone conversations with “How are you?” the second time they call you in under five minutes.
  

• Liberal use of the F-word, unless you’re this funny guy.
  

• People who interrupt my meal with a request to pass the bread, or the butter, or the salt, or that heavy jug of iced tea.
  Good lord, angrezis, just reach over or across as they do in India, won't you?

• Using the standard “I misplaced your number” as an excuse to not keep in touch.
  Tsk, tsk, c’mon, you can do better than that.
  

• Chai tea
  Perhaps this is why I was born. Maybe it’s my mission in life to save North Americans from further idiocy by pointing out the redundancy of ordering “tea tea” at a coffee shop.
  

• Signing off telephone calls with an “I love you” as a substitute for “bye.”
  Maybe it’s just my humans, but they usually grunt on the telephone, especially when talking to each other. “I love you” is used only on an as-needed basis.
  

• Call Waiting
  Really, people, I don’t understand you. What could possibly be more important than talking to me?

• Women who unconsciously greet men with a “What’s up?”
  Er ... trust me, ladies, you don’t want to know.
  

Update: For all the Naysayers

The guys in the mailroom were busy today. Between cigarette breaks and delivering inter-office mail, they had to bear bouquets of red roses to squealing women who clutched their hearts and acted as though the very thought, the flowers, the teddy bear and the accompanying balloon were a complete surprise.

Mom watched the messengers pass by her office so often that she started ignoring them by midday and turned her attention to more important matters, such as trying to pass gas discreetly after a heavy lunch of pulao and pindi channa.

Toward the afternoon, as the glare outside intensified, and the yoghurt from lunch dulled her senses, a box from FTD.com arrived with her name on it.

Chastened, mom chided herself for having badmouthed dad to the entire world and vowed to stop at the chocolaterie on the way back home to buy him some dark chocolate.

She opened the box and took out a brightly colored bunch of tulips. "Hmm, not very romantic, but brownie points for trying," thought mom, as she eyed the bright yellows and oranges. Holding the flowers to her nose, she wondered if she had to eat humble pie now that she had finally received a bouquet.

Mom plucked the note attached to the tulips.

“Welcome to the team!” it said. “We’re so glad you’re here. Happy Valentine’s Day!”

------------------------------------------

Breaking News:

At around 8 p.m. dad looked around his cubicle and realized he was the only guy with a significant other still at work. He hurriedly stopped by the mall and came home with a box of Cinnabons.

"This is for you," he said, shyly thrusting the box at mom.

"But ... but ... I have a buy-one-get-one-free coupon for this ... You should've told me ..." spluttered mom, killing even the slightest soupçon of romance in one fell swoop.

And you wonder how this woman has the gall to complain.

Kaho Na Pyar Hai

In case you didn’t get the memo, or don't care, like dad, Valentine’s Day is fast approaching. Mom’s female co-workers are in such a to-do that you’d think they all get serenaded and laid on only an annual basis.

“Ah, love!” thinks mom, wistfully, as she eyes the red and pink hearts taped on cubicle walls and the pink beanie babies gathering dust on computer monitors. The only Valentines she’ll receive will be from her kids, and that too courtesy their teachers.

“You know, it’s just a commercial holiday,” declared dad impatiently, when she broached him on the subject years ago, after waiting all day for some kind of acknowledgement on Feb. 14. “Hallmark invented it to increase sales,” he continued, as though mom gave a hoot about the historical information.

The first time dad gave her flowers was for their first-month anniversary. Dad was home later than usual that day, but he arrived clutching a bouquet of red roses and sporting an embarrassed grin. “Awww, you shouldn’t have,” blushed mom, immediately forgiving him his tardiness.

Unfortunately for her, dad took the statement quite literally. So literally, in fact, that mom hasn’t seen any flowers from him since (not counting that bouquet he sent on their 7th anniversary when she was visiting her relatives in New Jersey – a strategic move, mom suspects, designed more to impress his in-laws than her).

Things have reached a point where if she wants flowers mom drives to the local Costco and buys them herself. She loudly fusses whenever Kuki picks her a crushed bougainvillea from the roadside, hoping dad will get the reference, but the man continues to remain romantically challenged and selectively deaf.

Studies have shown that couples that have been together a number of years can read each other's thoughts and complete each other's sentences. Obviously, this pair hasn't reached that milestone yet.

So, if any of you have simple tips or subtle suggestions mom could use to score herself a serenade this Valentine's Day / birthday / anniversary / amavasya / International Women's Day, etc., do let her know.

She can then take it from there.

For a Few Dollars More

It took mom three months - three glorious months of enjoying the sunshine, spending time at the library, traveling, watching two movies a week and feeling sorry for all the people who had to work while she shopped - to find gainful employment again.

Gone are the days of lazing around the house, scratching her pajama-clad bottom and allowing her brain cells to gather dust. Mom is now awake, but barely alive at 6 a.m., and joins thousands of other groggy commuters as they wind their way toward smoggy downtown.

Traffic reports, which she once thought were a serious waste of airtime, are now music to mom’s ears. After reaching work 45 minutes late the first day thanks to an accident five miles away, she now relies on the radio the entire 29.5 miles to work and back.

In a futile effort to find a shortcut, mom has discovered neighborhoods she never knew existed, and has passed through side streets where the homeless congregate or working women flaunt their profession.

Her workplace is in a tony part of town, but the way there, like the road to El Dorado, is fraught with frustration and grave danger.

The first day, as mom sat in a long line of cars that didn’t move for 30 minutes, she contemplated jumping off the freeway ramp and walking the remaining 15.4 miles to work in her pointy black heels. Suddenly, the person next to her rear-ended the Honda in front of him and missed hitting mom’s car by a hairbreadth as he swerved into her lane.

Such are the perils our fair heroine faces on a daily basis.

In a span of five days, mom has seen numerous collisions, been honked at, cursed at in Spanish, been shown the finger, gone the wrong way on a one-way street in an unknown part of town and seen more hookers on downtown side streets than all the times Munnabhai encountered Gandhi.

And for the desperately curious - not a single one of those hookers looked anything like a Pretty Woman.

Duck Out of Water

Still on the fascinating subject of refrigerators, did anybody read the AP story about the hunter’s wife who opened her refrigerator to find the duck her husband shot two days ago lift up its head and look at her?

I know stranger things have happened, such as mom leaving IKEA empty-handed after spending three hours at the store, but the news report begs the following questions:

• Is this guy still married?
• Do hunters stuff game into the refrigerator without cleaning the animals first?
• Does this guy's family have to reach over carcasses to get to the tub of cream cheese in the back?
• Since said duck was alive, was he/she pooping in the fridge?

It’s stories like these that spook mom into staying vegetarian.

And here she thought our refrigerator needed cleaning because of some sambar spatters and the smell of a naked onion.