what i did this saturday

went furniture shopping with mother. a thankless task. we looked at tables, and chairs, and little cosy sofas, and small, funky purple chairs guaranteed to make any home look like a pub, and huge, sprawling beds that could fit seven guys like me. she liked the big sprawling beds, for some strange reason. “it's a house we have ma, not a palace,” i told her. she ignored me and spoke to the sales guy anyway. “rs 2,00,000 madam,” he told her, smiling politely. “what?” she asked. “for the bed or the whole damn shop?”

then, she decided to listen to me instead.

eventually, we decided to call the furniture guys home, tell them what we wanted and ask them for an opinion. in the middle of it all, zaki called. “coming over?” I could have said no, because I was tired and there was a david bowie album (earthling) waiting for me on my cd player. but I said ‘ok’ instead. funny. it was 7 pm already, but I thought, ‘what the heck'. dropped ma home, ran my hands through my fresh-cut hair (short, like a schoolboy's now) and left for mira road. got there just in time to watch zaki and sharmila walk the length of a football field 26 times. so, sat on a bench, watched them walk in slow motion, got eaten alive, slowly, methodically, by approximately 1200 mosquitoes that had no fear of human beings in them.

then, minutes before my body was sucked dry of every ounce of blood, they were done. on the way upstairs, in the lift, sharmila looked at me and said “there's a friend of mine at home, and she thinks your name sounds like chocolate.” i smiled politely, nodding, thinking to myself: ‘chocolate? that's a new one. what is she, some kind of weirdo?'

then, we rang the bell, walked in and, an hour and a half later, i thought, 'god, that is one cute weirdo'.

a very nice weekend :)