I have no clue how old I look. No, it wasn’t an invitation to make a wild guess an infuriate me with an undesirable answer. My kids have signed up for it already.
Each time I find myself engulfed by domestic chores (that I hate to the core) and I try to perk myself up with some music, the universe conspires against my poor little soul. There appears daughter number 2 in the kitchen, on a scavenger hunt in the fridge. And out of nowhere, a question makes its way to me, point blank –
“Were there refrigerators when you were a kid?”
“What in the world?”, I think. I mean seriously, do I look like I went to school with Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore? Or better still, I may have walked this planet with the dinosaurs? No, wait a minute, maybe, I am as old as the Earth itself. As these thoughts circle my brain and hammer it incessantly, I want to let the food on the flame burn and toss it on the little monster’s plate and make it even with her for such unwarranted questions.
But the motherhood agreement Sec 5.6.iii clearly takes signatures in full against – ‘I shall not use my trickery and evil girlie plans against my offspring. However, I am free to use them against other grown women for the rest of my life.’
With that reminder, I calmly lower the ladle, turn down the flame and laugh it out loud while informing the not-so-little repeat offender that I may not be born with either a silver or a golden spoon but my parents did make sure we had a fridge in the house as soon as my mother went into labour.
With zero knowledge of my mental state, my monster throws another googly – “So when were refrigerators invented?”
“Google it or you will have burnt pasta for dinner”, I announce.
Sniffing tension in the air, she vanishes even before I can take my next breath.
At the dinner table, the teen is full of beans. She has been reading about some history. And then she looks straight at me and declares,
“Well, for some reason, the 1900s seem like a very old time; like when most places were established or things started. You were born in the 1900s right Mommy?”
I just roll my eyes and peer straight at the better half who is never at the receiving end of any such remarks. He is clearly a century older but manages to go scot-free all the time. Sometimes, I wonder what have I done to deserve such tomfoolery.
I gesture at the older and wiser one by making crooked faces, condemning conclusions about the millennium I was born in and once again uplift my spirits and narrate the earlier incident about the fridge to the better half.
And before I realise what a foot in the mouth it is, Mr.Smarty Pants opens his mouth, “We had Kelvinator at home. Which one did you guys own?”
The naive me answers, “Godrej”
And instantly, he his rebuttal tears me, “And did your Godrej have a power supply? Because as far as I can remember, we had wardrobes made by Godrej”.
Then he cackles off merrily and the girls join in. I am left to bite dust.
P.S. I rethink my vows both as wife and mother and scowl. Some day, these three are going to eat burnt pasta with an overdose of chilli flakes. And that day is soon approaching.
Parent By Chance 