Chocolate, men, coffee - some things are better rich!!!

I was dutifully rooting through the shelves of rice, dal and the like at the friendly neighborhood grocery store, when I saw it. A little chocolate-colored tube perched amongst its snazzier counterparts. I took it down and the label proclaimed “Hip Hop Coffee Face Scrub”. Now which female worth her facials could have possibly resisted that lure?

I gleefully showed it off to my husband at the checkout counter. As usual, he brought me crashing down to earth, with his retort, “You put gallons of the stuff inside you each morning to try and wake up, that doesn’t seem to work, so now you’re trying to see if putting it on your face helps?

I refused to be squashed by comments like these, and resolved to try it out the very next morning; head cold notwithstanding. I figured a coffee face scrub was just the thing to drive away my “cold” blues. It was creamy in texture with lots of grainy stuff (I fondly imagined it to be lot of coffee beans ground up!!)

My face did look rosier, or was it just that the whole top layer had been stripped off, exposing the raw layer underneath? I quickly got ready for work (so I wouldn’t have to hear any more sarcastic comments from hubby dear ) and got to the office. Throughout the day, I could not but help notice that people kept giving me strange looks. I did look at the mirror, and there didn’t seem to be anything drastically different, so could it be that people thought I had fallen into a vat of coffee or something?

Ghostbusters

Sonny and I were alone at home. I was watching 1408 or rather trying to watch it after a long and hard-fought battle for the remote with the pint-sized terror in my home.

Let it be known that I had done my homework. I prefer not being scared to death and hence had sent out an SMS each to two of my horror movie aficionado friends and they had categorically assured me that I was unlikely to be encountering any strange creatures with dead pan (pun intended )faces, nor was it likely that there would be grotesque appendages popping out without warning.

But scare me it did; no not the movie, but the sudden indignant yells of "What are you watching Amma?" "And I want to watch cartoons"-this during some specially tense scenes in the movie.

Gradually it dawned on Sonny dear that Amma was a bit nervous-and that was putting it mildly. With an intuition that boggles the mind, he declared," You know what I will do when I see ghosts?" Now this seemed definitely more intriguing than the plot unfolding in front of me, and so I asked,"What?"

"I will throw some salt water on the ghosts and they will all die." Needless to say I handed over the remote.

Appuspeak

Cloud: The black dots you see when you point your camera skywards and zoom it like nobody’s business

Candle: something to blow out whether its perched on top of a birthday cake (dosent matter if its your own or somebody else's) or fixed to various surfaces in case of a power cut

Gettuping: The act of being dragged out of bed each morning using threats, water, wild stories and the like... exception on Sundays when these tactics do not need to be employed

Milk: The experimental liquid you experiment on each morning to see how much it can help you with delaying having to go to school. The temperature, texture and taste are potential weapons for a successful sortie. Success is measured by how high you can send mom’s and grandmom’s blood pressure each morning

Milking: No relation to the four-legged animals with the wayward tails. This is the walk grandfather and grandson take each morning to the Nandini milk booth. Usually associated with grandfather having to buy two “Boomers” (chewing gum) on the walk back

Match it: The act of striking a match while kneeling next to the cooking range with a over anxious Amma hovering about trying her best to get her hands on the said match and matchbox before the whole kitchen is set ablaze

Shoes: Storehouses of sand, bits of erasers, crayons, pencils or even a well-chewed bubble gum. The less said about what is sticking to the underside, the better

Sprok: The instrument with tines you can use to meddle with Maggi noodles until such time there is a bellow from mommy dear

Smelling: What lesser humans would call spellings

Uniform: Something to fight with each morning with all your might.. except for Saturdays when its “Jean Pant’ time

To be continued……