(Disclaimer - highly random post follows)
"Sigh", I sighed.
I find myself sighing a lot these days. Life, for some unfathomable reason, seems to have become so complicated. I am forever forgetting something or the other. Our watchman, who revels in being the harbinger of bad news, (had I been a medieval Mughal emperor he would long have been beheaded) had just called through to tell me I had a flat tyre. And I just realised I had given my spare tyre for fixing and forgotten to collect it.
"Sigh" I sighed again.
The missus, who was sitting on the sofa and reading her paper, chuckled.
"I am glad that you are able to derive mirth from my despondent demeanour" I said to her in my sourest voice, meaning it to sting.
"No, my sweet, I just remembered something the boys said"
"Why, what did they come up with now?" I asked her. I realized too late that I didnt want to know
"The younger one calls you Sigh Baba."
"Sai Baba?"
"No, Sigh Baba. Because you keep sighing all the time. Haha! Isn't that droll?"
It was the saddest joke I had heard from a source specializing in sad jokes but I kept mum. I had just remembered I had a certain confession to make and I needed lots, LOTS of good humour at this moment. I would have sighed again but I resisted the urge.
The problem was that I had answered our home phone on that fateful day. I normally don't, because the callers are usually random aunts who can speak for hours and ask uncomfortable personal questions when you least expect them to, and who want to speak to the missus anyway, but she was busy doing something in the kitchen and the phone kept ringing despite my best efforts to stare at it and make it stop.
"Pick up the phone, for gods sake!" she yelled from inside and I found myself talking to an uncle by marriage who told me a very complicated story about why he was in Bombay and embedded a "we're coming to your place on Friday" somewhere in it.
The missus normally debriefs me when I do something critical like answering the phone but that day there was a temperature related chemical composition change in the carbohydrate structure of the rice she was cooking and it took me many stressful minutes to pacify her. Finally, we decided to tell the boys we were having Smoked Rice Burmese Style for dinner, which, and this is why I adore children and their unquestioning innocence, they accepted without a murmur.
The upshot of all this was, as you guessed, I forgot to tell her that her uncle and his entire family were coming for dinner on Friday, which in a jolly little coincidence happened to be tonight.
"We have a few guests coming over for dinner....I forgot to tell you"
"WHAT! When?" asked the missus
"Tonight"
"TONIGHT! And you're sighing instead of telling me! Are you out of your mind? What are we going to serve them? Oats?"
"I don't see why not, if that is what I have to eat" I didn't say that of course. I just sort of stared at my toes.
"Who?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Who is coming?"
I told her. She appeared visibly relieved, said uncle being one of her jollier ones and the moment passed.
I further improved my standing by helping out in the kitchen. The missus makes a nice pudding which involves emptying one tin of Milkmaid condensed milk into two glasses of milk. I did this crucial step without so much as pilfering a spoonful of the condensed milk,excepting a little bit, to ensure the Milkmaid hadn't gone bad - and stirred it so competently that the pudding turned out delicious.
"I've heard you write a humour blog" said the uncle. Tell us a joke"
"Yes, yes, tell a joke" said the aunt.
Well, the uncle is an avid golfer so I told them the one about the lady golfer who complained to the greens committee that there were too many bees on the course and she had just been stung by one.
"Where were you stung, madam" asked the secretary of the greens committee
"Between the first and the second hole" answered the lady whereupn the secretary said "Ah! A difficult place to treat".
It fell flat. The uncle just sort of harrumphed and the aunt looked intently at the chair.
Well, that's that. My week that was. Hope y'all had a better.
"Sigh", I sighed.
I find myself sighing a lot these days. Life, for some unfathomable reason, seems to have become so complicated. I am forever forgetting something or the other. Our watchman, who revels in being the harbinger of bad news, (had I been a medieval Mughal emperor he would long have been beheaded) had just called through to tell me I had a flat tyre. And I just realised I had given my spare tyre for fixing and forgotten to collect it.
"Sigh" I sighed again.
The missus, who was sitting on the sofa and reading her paper, chuckled.
"I am glad that you are able to derive mirth from my despondent demeanour" I said to her in my sourest voice, meaning it to sting.
"No, my sweet, I just remembered something the boys said"
"Why, what did they come up with now?" I asked her. I realized too late that I didnt want to know
"The younger one calls you Sigh Baba."
"Sai Baba?"
"No, Sigh Baba. Because you keep sighing all the time. Haha! Isn't that droll?"
It was the saddest joke I had heard from a source specializing in sad jokes but I kept mum. I had just remembered I had a certain confession to make and I needed lots, LOTS of good humour at this moment. I would have sighed again but I resisted the urge.
The problem was that I had answered our home phone on that fateful day. I normally don't, because the callers are usually random aunts who can speak for hours and ask uncomfortable personal questions when you least expect them to, and who want to speak to the missus anyway, but she was busy doing something in the kitchen and the phone kept ringing despite my best efforts to stare at it and make it stop.
"Pick up the phone, for gods sake!" she yelled from inside and I found myself talking to an uncle by marriage who told me a very complicated story about why he was in Bombay and embedded a "we're coming to your place on Friday" somewhere in it.
The missus normally debriefs me when I do something critical like answering the phone but that day there was a temperature related chemical composition change in the carbohydrate structure of the rice she was cooking and it took me many stressful minutes to pacify her. Finally, we decided to tell the boys we were having Smoked Rice Burmese Style for dinner, which, and this is why I adore children and their unquestioning innocence, they accepted without a murmur.
The upshot of all this was, as you guessed, I forgot to tell her that her uncle and his entire family were coming for dinner on Friday, which in a jolly little coincidence happened to be tonight.
"We have a few guests coming over for dinner....I forgot to tell you"
"WHAT! When?" asked the missus
"Tonight"
"TONIGHT! And you're sighing instead of telling me! Are you out of your mind? What are we going to serve them? Oats?"
"I don't see why not, if that is what I have to eat" I didn't say that of course. I just sort of stared at my toes.
"Who?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Who is coming?"
I told her. She appeared visibly relieved, said uncle being one of her jollier ones and the moment passed.
I further improved my standing by helping out in the kitchen. The missus makes a nice pudding which involves emptying one tin of Milkmaid condensed milk into two glasses of milk. I did this crucial step without so much as pilfering a spoonful of the condensed milk,excepting a little bit, to ensure the Milkmaid hadn't gone bad - and stirred it so competently that the pudding turned out delicious.
"I've heard you write a humour blog" said the uncle. Tell us a joke"
"Yes, yes, tell a joke" said the aunt.
Well, the uncle is an avid golfer so I told them the one about the lady golfer who complained to the greens committee that there were too many bees on the course and she had just been stung by one.
"Where were you stung, madam" asked the secretary of the greens committee
"Between the first and the second hole" answered the lady whereupn the secretary said "Ah! A difficult place to treat".
It fell flat. The uncle just sort of harrumphed and the aunt looked intently at the chair.
Well, that's that. My week that was. Hope y'all had a better.
8 comments:
Funny as usual :D
what about the flat tyre?
you owe us an essay on that!
Hilarious as usual!!!
Between the first and second hole... hahahahaha....
:)
-N.
ROFL! see, we find it funny, you may not have relatives who appreciate your genius, but you have readers who do :P
Good one :D
Bhel
Did you seriously say that?? Or is it only to amuse your readers?
The best thing that can happen is a joke falling flat on its nose, or worse, having to explain the dratted thing. Always feel like a prime fool when that happens - mostly because I belong to one of those sad humans who laughs while delivering the joke!
I must blog about that - SIGH!
Sighing like yawning must be contagious....
You told this joke to an uncle and aunt..of course they wudnt show as if they understood but surely would've understood! By the way I just stumbled upon your blog though some tweet of yours which was re-tweeted by Ranvir Sheorey! :) You write very well Narendra sir..looking forward to your humorous posts..please keep up the writing..
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