I heard my husband walk through the front door calling my name over and over bursting with joy. One look at his face and I was ready to drop down on my knees and thank President Obama. Hallelujah! We got tax-exemption. I was sure of it. What else could have put that goofy grin on his face? Joy so pure and unadulterated on someone’s face can only mean a few things:
• You just received a notice in the mail from the IRS offering you full tax-exemption for life
• You struck oil in your backyard and now have to fight off the Sheikhs of the Middle East for your market share (or)
• You won a 50 million dollar lottery and Uncle Sam was kind enough to say ‘Never mind my share, you get to keep it all’.
Every year around this time in March, I find myself plagued by nightmares where I am running breathlessly through the dark and shady alleys of a city with Uncle Sam hard at my heels screaming hideously ‘Pay up, pay up, pay up’. I wake up drenched in sweat with eyes darting around in terror expecting to see an IRS agent cackling down at me with an audit notice flapping in his arm.
Obviously I wanted tax exemption more than anything else. Duh!
It turns out that that wasn’t the reason for the face-splitting grin on my husband’s face after all. His cell phone was dead. As in dead as a doornail.
Not a moment too soon according to my husband. It might sound callous to you but he had been waiting a long time for its death. Don’t get me wrong, he loved his cell phone. Such was his love that had I not stopped him, he would have called the governor and demanded a full State mourning and funeral befitting a fallen hero.
He did love his cell phone. It is just that he loved the new Droid phone on the market even more. All of Richmond knew that he had been secretly eyeing the Droid phone for a while now when he thought no one was looking. Did he really think that no one would notice those long sighs, vacant dreamy looks and the slight drool on the corner of his mouth? I knew and I sympathized with him. It must be really hard to be a gadget-junkie and not be able to play with the newest, shiniest and beautiful gadget out there.
All he needed was a valid excuse to go shopping for this new toy. The only excuse that didn’t bring truckloads of guilt with it was if the existing phone should die. And now finally it is dead and gone. Once I managed to calm him down and stop the hyperventilation, he was busy calling his friends to convey the good news after which he proceeded, in a frenzy, to check the websites for deals, do price comparisons and analyze the available accessories.
Today he is the proud owner of not one but two Droid phones thanks to the popular BOGOF sales technique. No happier man ever walked this earth.
If you are driving in our neighborhood and happen to catch a glimpse of another driver directing his Droid’s voice activated GPS to ‘Find Wal-Mart’ or ‘Find Chuck E Cheese’, be sure to honk and say hi to my husband.
-Meena Sankaran
14 comments:
I almost thought you let him buy an iPad! Being Nagu's Classmate and not owning a smartphone until now was surprising! Way to go. We can see him more online in FB now!
Good one, Meena. I have been telling everyone about phone-death-leads-to-droid-nirvana!
Jay - he had a smartphone before. Now its smarter!
:)
Droid'aa? Super :-) - He can always use our beta software :-)
Great write up!! Congratulations, Sankar on the new acquisition!
Though i am really not that tech_savvy and my knowledge on phones(including Droid) is very limited, i can feel that this is a very special moment for him. good one Meena.
Thank you, folks, for stopping by.
If his grin was that big when the old phone dropped dead, just imagine his face when he first held his new Droid phone. Kids coming home with a big sack of candy after their Halloween rounds don't smile that big. :-))
Nice post Chithi! Congratulations Chitappa!
-Shambhavi
Well, I can understand the giddy joy part of it :) I am unsure about the choice tho'.
Droid = Google = Tracking = Privacy Invasion = Big Brother --> Paranoid Srilatha..
It is great to have smart phones, but I'm wary of the Google plot to throw a web around the world and monitor our actions.
Also, riding on the paranoia superhighway,
'Droid = Android = Terminator = Taking over the world = Enslaving Humans ..
From:
Srilatha
Location: Aluminum-foiled secret chamber where the govt/google cannot read her thought waves
Thank you Shambavi.:-))
@Srilatha - LOL! God, I love your sharp wit!
//'Droid = Android = Terminator = Taking over the world = Enslaving Humans ..//
I laughed so much that my sides truly ached.
Be assured that you are not alone in the happy peppy land of 'Paranoia'. I have heard similar concerns expressed over Google's alleged omnipresence in the Web threatening to expose our very fragile private lives....
Since you have managed to spook me now, how about making some room in the aluminium-foiled secret chamber for me?? :-))
Goo one Meena and Congrats Shankar...condolences to your fallen hero too.. lets not forget you are where you are because of him/her!!
@Srilatha.. as long as you do not have aluminum foil cone hats signs style...
You have such a wonderful gift. I really like your write up. It brings me smiles and sometimes uncontrollable laughs whenever I read your stuff.
Also
phone-death-leads-to-droid-nirvana
JUST AWESOME.
@ Meena: One foil chamber coming up coming up. ETA: TOP SECRET. Unlock Code:REMEMBER ROSWELL.
@ Prashanti: Not cones. My hats are pyramid shaped. As Dan Brown, the Freemasons and Ancient Egyptians know, the pyramids are conduits for accessing highest realms of power.
:-)
Srilatha
@Prashanthi: Thank you Prashanthi.:-)
@Anonymous: Welcome and thank you for your kind words. I write primarily to put a smile on my reader's face so if you are smiling, that is great. If you are laughing, that is even better. :-))
@Srilatha: ETA and UNLOCK CODE?? Have you been indulging in a '24' marathon recently?
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