Too fast, too soon

Mom winced as she glanced at the front page of the newspaper this morning.

"Jeffs convicted for role in child's rape," screamed the headlines in size 24 font, reporting on the sentence handed down to a leader of a polygamous sect.

Mom's first instinct was to throw the front page into the recycling bin, before it even made it to the kitchen table.

If dad hadn’t been asleep, she would have thrust the newspaper under his nose and said, “See? This is why I don’t encourage Anu to read the newspaper.”

Her nine-year-old is far too young to add the word ‘rape’ to his budding vocabulary.

On a wing and a prayer

It’s one thing to sit in a dark study and play Flight Simulator X for a few hours while your wife taps her foot impatiently and clangs pots and pans in the kitchen to get your attention.

It's quite another to read Plane&Pilot magazine in bed late into the night while your wife shields her eyes from the glare of the reading lamp.

But it's an entirely different matter altogether to sign up for flying lessons and nonchalantly dismiss your wife’s fears by spouting statistics on the number of airplane fatalities being lower than in other kinds of transportation.

Do you think your wife even cares about the studies conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board?

As you drive to the airport three times a week for your lessons, she summons all the long-ignored gods of her childhood to calm her pounding heart as it threatens to explode from its cavity.

If she were four years old, she’d stomp her feet, throw herself on the floor and cling to you with tears streaming down her face, begging you to stay home.

Instead, she exhibits about the same insouciance as when you step out for an evening jog.

Mom's not the kind to stop you from doing what you want, but if you really need a new hobby, dad, why don't you take up blogging instead?

If you want glitz, go to the Ritz

There were no mirrors on the ceiling or pink champagne on ice on check-in.

Instead, a ghastly green bedspread, the exact shade of meconium, greeted mom when she walked into the hotel room.

“Er …, the owner does her own decorating,” said the genial general manager in an apologetic tone, as he guided mom and a few of her co-workers around his three-star property for an impromptu, behind-the-scenes tour.

Mom steadied herself against the closest wall as she took in the matching bedspread and curtains, the yellow bed skirt, the pink shower curtain in the bathroom and the geometric-patterned purple carpet in the hallway.

“Almost reminds you of Vegas, doesn’t it?” the manager joked feebly, pointing to the carpet.

“Imagine walking out of your hotel room with a hangover and looking down at that,” stage-whispered the woman next to mom.

As she listened to the manager wax eloquent about the finer points of his hotel (few and far between), and lead the group through an assortment of conference rooms, gym and supply rooms, mom learned that running a hotel – even a midsized property with mismatched furniture - was the probable cause of the man’s receding hairline.

“The owner invested her alimony in this hotel,” revealed the housekeeping manager on the second half of the tour.

As she ushered the group into an elevator for the penthouse tour, she said, “Ladies, take my advice. If you ever get divorced, don’t put your money into a hotel.”

Throwing open the door to a room that bore further testimony to her mistress's decorating prowess, she announced, “The owner lived here for three years. Can you imagine what it’s like to have your boss 24/7 on the property?”

In between running a gloved finger over the headboard, the top of picture frames, the bathroom mirror and the television set to inspect for traces of dust missed by her Latina crew, the woman informed the group that her team was the lowest paid in the industry, but worked the hardest.

“My girls have 30 minutes to clean each room,” said the woman, who reminded mom of Mrs. Tharakan, her physical education teacher in high school, who tended to smack children on their heads and blow a whistle in their ears.

The group watched in awe as one of the “girls” stripped a bed and remade it in a minute. She changed the pillow covers, fluffed the cushions and tucked the sheets in hospital corners in less time than it takes mom to successfully operate a hotel key card.

“People can be such pigs when they stay in a hotel,” continued the housekeeping manager as she lifted the ruffled bed skirt to peer under the bed. “You wouldn’t believe the stuff they leave behind.”

As an example, she narrated the time her hotel hosted a gay convention.

“It was just one big porno fest. That’s what it was, I tell ya,” she said, recalling the reek of marijuana in the hallway and the “No women allowed on the 3rd floor” rule imposed by the demanding delegates.

“It was a three-day orgy, yessir,” the woman shuddered. “Some of the guys were really cute, but they were as gay as I'm female.”

At the tail end of the tour, while wolfing down complimentary chocolate chip cookies at the front desk, mom asked a question that had been bothering her the entire day. Spurred by guilt at having made off with one too many unused shower caps and lotion samples over the years, mom wanted to know what the most common items filched from hotel rooms were.

“Anything that’s not glued or nailed down,” said the housekeeper, a look of disgust spreading over her face.

Unused toiletries, thankfully, were not on her list.

The Bible in the drawer, however, is a different story.

Itna sannaata kyun hai bhai?

“You must be glad to have your house to yourself,” said the neighbor when she heard that the grandparents had left after 3 ½ months of cooking, cleaning, baby and dogsitting.

Sure .... If you usually loll around the house au naturel.

Other than that, I don't see the perks.

Yeh tera mera milna

Watching the humans canoodle like newlyweds in private this weekend, one would think that dad had returned home from an odyssey instead of a mere nine-day trip with limited cell phone service.

If you ask me, these people need to get out more.

Mom, however, begs to differ.

She'd rather they acted like an old, married couple than stay away from each other for any length of time.