I always knew he was clever but I never realized just how much. I had no clue that he was capable of such devious plotting. I concede that I wrote a few articles here at his expense. Okay, so I pulled his leg a few times publicly and enjoyed it too but for a spouse of 16 years, couldn’t he just take it in his stride? Was this action really necessary? Could you, in all honesty, justify it?
Let me be frank here. I didn’t see it coming at all. Not until it fell into my lap. I never once heard him say anything like ‘If I go down, I am taking you down with me.’ No such hints were dropped in my presence. He kept it under tight wraps till that day just so he could catch me off guard. According to him, it was a ‘surprise’ for me! Yeah, right…..like I am buying it. It wasn’t enough that he ended up an addict. He had to now go and make me one too.
Guess what my husband got me for my birthday last month? A Droid phone with 24/7 internet access, that’s what. How LOW can he get? Has he no shame?
Before this gift, I was having such a splendid time looking down my nose at the Droid phone addiction of the world at large, feeling superior about my self-control and strutting around with a smug smile plastered on my face. Riding high on a moral high horse was my specialty then. These days I can’t even crawl on the back of a moral pig.
Upon accepting his gift, I first gave him a look that was sure to wither a healthy young plant, then pulled up a chair and got busy. Obviously, there was no time to waste with a whole new world to explore at my fingertips. Several You Tube videos were beckoning me with the promise of entertainment, a built-in voice recorder was begging me to play with it and a digital camera was tempting me to click the ‘Kodak moments’ of life away. With these, also came a plethora of free applications that offered to keep track of my grocery lists, calorie intake, frequency of burping, pulse rate, dry cleaning schedule and cooking recipes. Oh, get this. I even found a free app to download a special pink calendar to keep track of my menstrual cycle with all its lovely details. Can’t believe it? Well, if I didn’t see it myself, I wouldn’t have believed it either. It is a miracle indeed.
If God had ever marked both this phone and the fruit from the tree of knowledge as forbidden in the Garden of Eden, guess what Adam and Eve would have chosen? Could you really blame them? Even Satan would bow low in submission to such devilry.
So now I have officially joined the ranks of the many whose lives are inexplicably tied to their phones. Do the phone companies realize that they are creating monsters around the world?
Yesterday evening, I looked up for a minute from my Droid phone only to find my husband and daughter sprawled over the couch across from me with their eyes locked onto their respective phones. Just weeks ago, stumbling upon a scene like this would have led me to launch one of my well-rehearsed lectures on the ill effects of technology addiction and ways to develop self-control. Now, all I can do is heave a sigh of resignation and get back to my game.
You have got to hand it to my husband. He really did kill 2 birds with one stone here. He got me (my friends insist) a great gift while at the same time, silencing my protests and lectures about his phone addiction effectively. Obviously the man is devious!
If you are sitting there mentally congratulating my husband on his clever mind, hear this too. Now that he has taken care of his problem (me)once and for all, guess what he got me for our anniversary last week? A pillow from Costco!
Makes me think that my Droid phone isn't so bad after all.
-Meena Sankaran
Showing posts with label family tradition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family tradition. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Knock Knock. Who is there?
Usually people have different reasons to buy houses in a certain neighborhood. While choosing a new home, some look for a safe neighborhood, some look to see if the home has easy access to schools, shops etc., some insist on a cul-de-sac so the kids can bike without the worries of traffic.
Me? I had a unique list of priorities while choosing mine. Topping my list was a critical one. I was looking for neighbors who wouldn’t call the cops when they find me knocking on their door at 6.00 in the morning to borrow some sugar for coffee. Or when I go to borrow some cilantro for a pot of lentil soup, 2 AA batteries for a new toy, a needle and a thread to sew a button on my kid’s band shirt, a glue stick for a school project or 1 egg for a cake recipe that calls for it. With gas prices soaring, you don’t really expect me to get in the car and head to the store every time I need a little thing, do you?
When it finally dawned on me that my utility closet, kitchen pantry and refrigerator will never sag under the weight of being fully stocked I figured my next best bet was to have neighbors to whom overstocking was a religion. Somewhere in the Bhagavat Gita, there must be a line that reads ‘Treat thy neighbor’s supplies, food or otherwise, as your own’ or else I am toast. You can hardly blame me for this attitude because I grew up watching the best borrow/buy/sell/ trade transactions ever conducted over a wire fence in our backyard. My mom and our backdoor neighbor served as each other’s ‘7 Eleven’ store when I was growing up. Ran out of flour to make rotis? No problem. Shout over the fence and thou shall get it and vice versa. I learnt it early in my life that if you can’t count on your neighbor for a pinch of salt and a cup of yogurt every now and then, you can’t count on anything in life. Embarking on a journey to buy a home, it made solid sense to first look for good ‘stocked up’ neighbors.
With this plan etched in my mind, I set out to look for properties with my realtor. The neighbors were scrutinized more thoroughly than any house shown by the realtor and points were mentally awarded for friendliness, accessibility, a second fridge in the garage (anyone with a second fridge would definitely be big on stocking from Costco or Sam’s Club) etc. Many potentially good houses were turned down for lack of qualified neighbors. When I was ready to throw in the towel and accept that I was not going to get lucky like my mom, fate smiled on me and showed me a neighbor who raked in a perfect score of 100% on all my tests. Don’t quote me on this but I have a feeling that my neighbor was born with a smile on her face and her guarding angel put a spell to freeze it there. She is ever so friendly and best of all, she believes in buying 2 of everything when she shops. Lucky for me, huh?
I go to bed every night thanking my lucky stars for this neighbor who makes it easy for me to carry on a family tradition. My mom would be proud of me.
-Meena Sankaran
Me? I had a unique list of priorities while choosing mine. Topping my list was a critical one. I was looking for neighbors who wouldn’t call the cops when they find me knocking on their door at 6.00 in the morning to borrow some sugar for coffee. Or when I go to borrow some cilantro for a pot of lentil soup, 2 AA batteries for a new toy, a needle and a thread to sew a button on my kid’s band shirt, a glue stick for a school project or 1 egg for a cake recipe that calls for it. With gas prices soaring, you don’t really expect me to get in the car and head to the store every time I need a little thing, do you?
When it finally dawned on me that my utility closet, kitchen pantry and refrigerator will never sag under the weight of being fully stocked I figured my next best bet was to have neighbors to whom overstocking was a religion. Somewhere in the Bhagavat Gita, there must be a line that reads ‘Treat thy neighbor’s supplies, food or otherwise, as your own’ or else I am toast. You can hardly blame me for this attitude because I grew up watching the best borrow/buy/sell/ trade transactions ever conducted over a wire fence in our backyard. My mom and our backdoor neighbor served as each other’s ‘7 Eleven’ store when I was growing up. Ran out of flour to make rotis? No problem. Shout over the fence and thou shall get it and vice versa. I learnt it early in my life that if you can’t count on your neighbor for a pinch of salt and a cup of yogurt every now and then, you can’t count on anything in life. Embarking on a journey to buy a home, it made solid sense to first look for good ‘stocked up’ neighbors.
With this plan etched in my mind, I set out to look for properties with my realtor. The neighbors were scrutinized more thoroughly than any house shown by the realtor and points were mentally awarded for friendliness, accessibility, a second fridge in the garage (anyone with a second fridge would definitely be big on stocking from Costco or Sam’s Club) etc. Many potentially good houses were turned down for lack of qualified neighbors. When I was ready to throw in the towel and accept that I was not going to get lucky like my mom, fate smiled on me and showed me a neighbor who raked in a perfect score of 100% on all my tests. Don’t quote me on this but I have a feeling that my neighbor was born with a smile on her face and her guarding angel put a spell to freeze it there. She is ever so friendly and best of all, she believes in buying 2 of everything when she shops. Lucky for me, huh?
I go to bed every night thanking my lucky stars for this neighbor who makes it easy for me to carry on a family tradition. My mom would be proud of me.
-Meena Sankaran
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