#calm #monkeyseemonkeydo #attitude #rolemodel

Life is no fun without nightmares. Imagine waking up to a pounding headache, literally. The noise from groundbreaking of your upstairs neighbors makes you feel as though you were sleeping in some war zone. You pick up your phone and typing feels so rickety you can see the alphabets jumping off your screen at every beat of the hammer. Add to it, a blocked nose and a throat hijacked by pain and itch that forces you to drift into silence. Enter my world of nightmarish Wednesday – I’d like to call it ‘Wacky Wednesday’ after one of my favorite Dr.Suess titles. A day packed with disasters unfolding one problem at a time creating the domino effect.

Kids take me by surprise. They are up before me, all bikinied up, ready to launch into the pool first thing in the morning. They have plans with friends. Faded grunting sounds of the better half working on his abs in the living room, make way through my razor-sharp wifey-ears despite the flu. And the very thought of fixing breakfast and jumping into my routine with my usual zest is killing. No trophies for guessing, I was off to a grumpy start this morning. And the noise of floor drilling appeared like a surprise school test. Only, the subjects were ‘Patience’ and ‘Endurance’.

The husband had to leave, correction, was rather lucky to leave this peaceful abode in hunt of other noise-making avenues like meeting rooms and customer fixations. Like there was any dearth of drama, the heavens began to pour. My girls felt anything but ecstatic their playdate had been ruined thanks to Zeus and his lightning bolt.

I felt doomed, to say the least. Verbal communication was out of question and it was for the first time I looked at my WhatsApp status with respect – ‘No calls, Wapp only’. Somebody had actually thought through this situation. Suddenly, the term ‘User Experience’ revealed itself to me.

I felt trapped in my own house with nowhere to go and pretty much nothing interesting to do. So I turned on the idiot box. Despite all odds, my mind came up with this brilliant suggestion to watch Pushpak (an old Bollywood movie with no dialogues at all). But what the heck we watched Fuller House anyways. My girls turned up the volume to maximum. My mind raced back to Black Or White by Micheal Jackson where a kid turns the volume so high, the walls vibrate. I had trouble deciding what was more harmful – the blaring TV or the deadly drilling. The only beneficiaries of these high decibel sounds would be my next door neighbors who were now at an advantage to watch the same series as us, with the mute mode on. Each time the workers took a break, we would experience a deafening silence. And I would leave no stone unturned to deliver sermons to the girls over their pending chores while making quick calls to the better half reminding him to count his blessings.

We went over the day screaming our lungs out trying to communicate at first; then getting smart and using sign language. This led to some accidents though. Like I understood ice cream as I want milk and pasta as paratha instead. The girls spent a whole hour of unaccounted use of bathroom time in the name of shower followed by relaxation in the bedroom to contemporary brick-breaking music and ghoulishly dancing ceiling fan, courtesy our thoughtful neighbors. They so deserve a Thanksgiving speech from yours truly. A plug jumped out of the socket spooking me as I cooked. Overall, we were unable to think much. Noise definitely numbs the brain and puts the nervous system to sleep. It felt like being on Big Boss with the Dumb Charades mode on. On the hindsight, times like these present the best opportunity to learn.

Despite all discomfort, neither my kids nor I fretted over our all wacky Wednesday – something out of our control. We accepted the situation and worked around it although it drove us up the wall. I was able to fix breakfast and lunch despite all aches and pains. In fact, I am guilty of staying super-cool. That took some effort though. At first, the noise seemed like it was going to tear open the ceiling and push bricks at my face. I even imagined the fan landing on my head. My thoughts can get quite fanciful. But then, I put up a brave front. Blame it on the flu medicines. They must be great if the drilling didn’t get past my ears and I was able to hallucinate. It was a long day that ended at the Great Moscow Circus. Now, all we need is to rest and recuperate. Tomorrow will be a new day with the same old misadventure.

P.S. The best and the worst are always yet to come. How you deal with the situation determines your happiness quotient. It isn’t always guerilla warfare that helps discipline the kids. It’s mostly emulation. In times of a storm, if you maintain the calm, children get ethereal at handling surprises. Every problem presents a lesson waiting to be learned. The only drawback is, the husband gets away, all the time.