Bashed, Abashed

I walked into my apartment totally exhausted. It was almost 7.00 pm. I was very keenly looking forward to slumping onto my couch comfortably and lazing there for a while. But for some reason, I thought I’d fight my fatigue, throw open the ever-unlocked front door of my home and storm into the home and give my mom a little shock. I was smiling involuntarily imagining my mom shouting at me and asking me to grow up and get back to my senses and blah blah. I soon started grinning. I saw a fellow inhabitant of the apartment looking at me suspiciously. I saw her walk past me shaking her head disapprovingly. I could hear it almost as if she’d shouted out to me, ‘Girls these days!’ That only made me grin wider.

I tiptoed out of the elevator, reached my front door, burst into the house shouting ‘mooooooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmm’ and I froze mid way. There were guests. Shucks! Up in the air flew my little dignity. They were as shocked as I was. I simpered pathetically. My mom came rushing from the kitchen with a tea cup in her hand. She looked extremely perplexed at first, then having realized that I’d tried to do something crazy, she stifled her laugh and introduced me to the guests. They were my dad’s colleague’s family. My dad had invited them home for tea but had received an urgent call from one of his friends and had to leave. Unfortunately tea had extended to supper. I looked at them and tried to smile but looked like I got caught somewhere in between a cough and hiccup and a grin and I walked into my room with very bright red ears.

Inside my room, I saw my brother waiting for me to come in. He had come early that day from work. He looked at me and instantaneously started shaking with silent laughter. I couldn’t help it and I started laughing with him too. My mom put her head inside the door and interrupted our insanity. She called me to lend her a helping hand in the kitchen. I hurriedly finished my duties dutifully and went off to the kitchen.

Since the supper had been quite unanticipated, my mom really had lots of chores to attend to. I decided I would act responsible and ameliorate some of the dirt that had rubbed off on my reputation. After I’d done a bit of assistance, my mom thrusted into my hands the tea cups that were brimming and fuming angrily, as if challenging me to carry them without spilling driblets of the edible consignment. Well, they were messing with the wrong person then- I thought to myself and walked extra cautiously. Now if you happen to be anticipating the occurrence of a mishap, I’m sorry to dishearten you, nothing of that sort happened. I successfully delivered the beverage, passed on a friendly smile to the guests and settled onto the swing chair. They looked puzzled. What? Were they expecting me to pass out on the carpet? Some people they were! The fat lady sitting at the corner of the couch did smile back at me; after what seemed like ages of silence.

The balding man seemed to have come out of a delusion and decided it wouldn’t be so harmful after all to start a conversation with me and engaged himself in bombarding me with questions he already knew the answers to; ’where did u study?’, ‘oh that is an institution run by people who run Amritanandamayi Matt rite?’, blah blah blah. I was waiting for my dear brother to rescue me from this predicament. Finally he emerged from our inside the room and apologized, clearly bluffing, that he had to attend a very important call. He couldn’t pretend it any longer. I grinned at him triumphantly as I left to the kitchen to help my mom.

Inside the kitchen, my mom made it obvious to me that she was glad I delivered the tea without soiling the carpet. My injured self confidence was mending. Dinner was ready. My stomach was grumbling noisily. Since my mom made it clear that we’ll wait for the guests to finish the dinner, bid them adieu and then eat, I gobbled down a couple of chocolate cookies trying to appease the beast in my stomach.

Tradition has always been a forerunner at my home. So my mom insisted that the guests be served their dinner in banana leaves. She wanted me to serve the food. Great. They were seated on the floor. And I started serving the food in the order that they were meant to be served. Well. Did I mention? There was an extremely annoying kid the guests had brought with them. And that little tumult was whining for more of sweet. I tried to keep my face straight and gave her one more piece. I stepped back from her leaf. Oops! I stepped on something really squishy. I turned in horror to find myself resting my left leg in the center of the leaf of the fat man. Ew! That was gross. What happened next was a complete chaos. My brother burst out laughing. My mom was trying extremely hard not to laugh her heads off. The little rat of the girl started crying; God knows for what. The fat lady was so shocked she thought she would wipe my feet off the food I’d stepped on. The bald guy didn’t know if he had to tell ‘O it’s alright’ or ‘Watch out girl’ or ‘Watch where you put your next leg now’. Since he didn’t tell any of those, I ended up putting my next leg into the glass of water and slipped and fell. The whole of the room was a mess. So was I.

The incidents that followed were not vital. The damage was done. My mom helped me clean the mess and served food in another leaf accompanied with a hundred apologies. The rest of the serving was taken care by my mom and bro. They wouldn’t risk another such malady. I stuck to kitchen silently munching on all that I could lay my hands on and cleaning the already clean kitchen. My ears had surpassed the degree of shame they could handle and were probably of a strange mix of red and purple. When the guests left after lunch, none was happier than I was. That night when my dad came home and listened to what had happened, he swore, he’d think twice before bringing guests to my home again.