Twisted DNA

Getting food on the table is easy for me. I walk into a restaurant, pick up the waiting take-out order and put it on the dining table. Some people prefer a more circuitous method called cooking. I strongly maintain that if all humans are meant to cook, we would have evolved with a spatula for a hand. In any case, I have recently been asked to produce macaroni and cheese, not by the normal processes of getting it from a restaurant but by the infinitely complex process called cooking.

What happened was, over-ambitious wife promised mac-and-cheese to the kid but found herself unable to fulfill the promise due to an unexpected call from work. I was volunteered to fulfill the said promise. In her words, “Mac and cheese is easy. Boil milk. Pour macaroni. Add cheese and serve.” but for some reason she insisted on her writing the recipe down and repeating it 20 times.

The dish may sound simple but the recipe was not. My theory is that when a process involves heating milk to its boiling point, using hot burners and tongs, it should be classified as a chemical experiment rather than a process to produce something edible. Perhaps I should have started with a simpler dish. But as the old adage goes, all’s well that ends well. My cooking certainly ended well and the kid was well-fed and well-nourished.

When my wife arrived home, I was ready to accept the profusion of encomiums that were in order for the extraordinary job I performed. But no! No accolades. No tears of gratitude. Not even a small gift of appreciation.

All she did was look at the dish in which I produced my magnum opus and raise an eyebrow. I waited for the other eyebrow to follow suit but it didn’t. That was not a good sign.

She: (Suspiciously) Why is there ketchup in mac and cheese?

She was in dire need of enlightenment.
Me: When food has a smoky flavor, you nuke it with ketchup

She: It must have tasted awful!

Me: Au contraire, he loved it. (vigorous head-nodding approval from the kid)

She: (Growing more suspicious) Why did the mac-and-cheese have a smoky flavor?

I continued to enlighten her.
Me: Food assumes a smoky flavor when it is burnt

She: You burned MAC-AND-CHEESE? How could anyone burn Mac and cheese! It’s the simplest thing in the world to make!

I would argue with the choice of the word “simple” but it was not the best time for the dissertation of my chemical experiment theory.
Me: It’s not my fault. It’s the kid’s fault.

She: How so?

Me: See, after I put the macaroni in boiling milk, I needed to wait a few minutes for it to cook. So I told the kid to watch it while I cleaned the broken glass in the garage. Apparently in his vocabulary, “cooked” means “general texture of bituminous coal”

She: YOU LEFT A 3 YEAR OLD AT THE STOVE!?

Me: I know, he completely blew it. In retrospect I should have watched the pot while he did the cleaning. But hindsight is 20/20.

She couldn’t speak for a few minutes probably mulling over the cogency of my argument.
She: (Resignedly) So he ate that charred glob.

Me: Why would I do that? We extracted all matter of certain color and brittleness and disposed it carefully in the trash. Then we doubled the cheese portion to compensate for the lost macaroni.

She: Let me get this straight, he basically ate a ball of cheese with ketchup.

Me: You make it sound so unappetizing

In the “good manners” books, they spend chapters upon chapters on such details as which hand to hold the fork with and which finger to pick the nose with. But they don’t spare a word for public restroom etiquette. Which forces me to pass on a few etiquette requests to my colleagues and other people I had the misfortune of sharing a restroom with.

1. When you are in the restroom, I implore you to keep oral communication at a minimum. In other words, shut the f up. We are not having a communal, joyous experience here. Just finish your job and get out.

2. Do you know what’s worse than #1? Turning your head and looking at the guy you are talking to. It’s creepy. Don’t do it. Just pretend there is something very interesting going on in your bowl and focus on it.

3. Do you know what’s worse than #2? Talking from inside the stall. I don’t really need to associate you with all the reverberating sound-effects.

4. As you know, urinals come in two sizes. Tall and short. For some reason short guys insist on choosing the tall one, even if they have to stand up on their toes to reach it. So, please, let the tall guy behind you have the tall one.

5. When somebody is waiting for your to finish, please take as much time as you need to finish your job and dress yourself properly, including zipping up completely before you turn around from the urinal. I am speaking for the entire male and most of female community when I say, nobody wants to see your underpants.

6. It really doesn’t concern me but I have to say this. Please don’t set your drinks on the urinal! Can’t you leave them at your desk or on the sink? And it is just plain gross to sip your drink while urinating.

7. If the restroom has more than one urinal, it is customary to leave at least one urinal between you and any other fellow users. But don’t go out of your way to leave more than one gap. You will look too secretive and raise suspicion.

8. Some restrooms are cursed with attached showers. I understand that you have to wait for the shower when somebody is using it. But that does not give you the right to bare yourself in full-frontal, thereby permanently scarring the retinas of unsuspecting restroom users. Please, for the love of all straight Greek gods, wear a towel or something.

9. It must be one of those unsolved medical mysteries, why some people’s Salivary glands lunge into production precisely when they are at the urinal. Whatever the reason may be, spitting while urinating is disgusting. Further more, you are challenging yourself to hit a single target from two different sources, thereby defocussing yourself and increasing the chances of inaccuracy in your delivery. Remember that the subsequent users of the urinal must suffer the results of your failure to hit the target.

10. Do you really have to check news on your phone when peeing, performing a fine balancing act with both hands, where any slight slippage of either hand could be very expensive? Let me break it to you. Unless you have superpowers to make news happen faster by peeing, nothing is going to change in those 2 minutes.

11. Any bodily contact with another person, such has hand-shakes or shoulder-touches, while in restroom, must be avoided at all costs. Should such contact be unavoidable, it must be restricted to the “green zones.” The following picture depicts a normal path traversed by ordinary urinators. Green and hazard zones are marked.

Everybody has problems. When people have problems they struggle through them and finally find a solution. But if you are too lazy to solve your own problems, there is a plethora of agony aunts who offer perfectly middle-of-the-road, utterly politically correct and hence completely useless advice. However, to rival the Dear Abbys and Dear Margos of the world, there is a new star in the advice column scene. It is none other than our own Bollywood! Who better can advise people than Bollywood with decades of experience in life’s problems.

I have been fortunate enough to obtain the first set of the questions and answers from the brand new advice column, “Dear Bolly!”

Question:
Dear Bolly, I am a proud grandmother of a handsome boy who is now living in the city. I want him to come back to our village and fall in love with this girl. But he refuses. How do I get him to come back to the village?
Answer:
A simple telegram that says “Grandmother serious. Start immediately.” will do the trick. When he comes back expresses shock upon finding you in the pink of health, let out a hallow guffaw and tell him “I will not die until I play with my great-grand children.” The girl you mentioned will take care of falling in love part, with brass innuendos and slutty songs.

Question:
Dear Bolly, I would like to disguise myself. Any suggestions?
Answer:
A completely unrecognizable disguise can be worn by simply wearing black sunglasses and a slightly different hairstyle. Not even your mom will be able to recognize you. But be warned! Lowering the glasses on to the nose and looking over them and winking has been proven to let your girlfriend identify you immediately.

Question:
Dear Bolly, Urgent! A snake bit my girlfriend. What do I do now?
Answer:
Fret not. Snakes can not only inject venom into human bodies, but they can suck the venom out as well, just like sucking juice out of a juice box. The trick is to make a compelling argument to the snake to take the venom back. This can be achieved by climbing up on a hill and singling a melancholy filled song. When you sing the song, the snake has two options to make you stop singing. It can bite you and take you down. Or it can take the venom back from your girlfriend. Stay as far away from your girlfriend as possible, because, then the snake would take the quickest way to put an end to your song and suck the venom back.

Question:
Dear Bolly, My girlfriend is in a girls-only hostel. I want to get into the hostel and meet her. How can I do that?
Answer:
One of the original intentions of burqa is to help men get into women’s hostels. Do not worry if you are a 6-footer or have hairy legs and hands showing through the burqa. Nobody will notice it. Strategically placed balloons (sold separately) are known to enhance the effect.

Question:
Dear Bolly, I am a pretty girl and a sister to a handsome, hero-like, guy. Astrologically, what birthstone should I be wearing to get married soon?
Answer:
It doesn’t matter what birthstone you wear, you will soon be raped. The rapist will refuse to marry you until your brother makes him see the error in his ways, by beating him into a pulp. So the answer to your question is, you will be married soon. So be happy.

Question:
Dear Bolly, my car stopped all of a sudden on a rural road. How do I fix it?
Answer:
There is only one solution any kind of car problem. Pour water in the radiator. Grab the empty can from the trunk, which never fails to be present, and walk in a random direction until you chance up on a lake and a pretty girl taking water from it.

Question:
Dear Bolly, I just had a serious accident and am unconscious. Will I recover?
Answer:
People seldom die from accidents. No matter how you are hurt or what bones are broken, what you immediately need is an operation. The doctor will tell your family exactly how much the operation will cost, which, in most cases, is 1 lakh (100,000) rupees. Don’t worry. Stay peacefully unconscious. You will soon wake up with a bandage to your head and rest of the body unscathed. Please remember that it is good etiquette to ask, “Where am I” upon waking up.

Question:
Dear Bolly, I am a pretty and young girl. What is the proper way of taking a shower?
Answer:
Even in utmost privacy, girls must wrap their torso in a sari or towel while taking a shower and soap only uncovered parts.

Question:
Dear Bolly, I am poor but for a brief period I need to make people believe that I am rich. How do I do that?
Answer:
The key to your success lies in obtaining the right kind of a glittery, slivery long coat that has the right mix of garishness and cheapness. Which should be topped by an equally appalling hat. Other accoutrements include shiny shirts, crocodile shoes and large glasses. A possible source of such costume would be Las Vegas pimps. Speak in a weird “foreign” accent. Carry two suitcases and tell people that the suitcases are full of gold. That’s it. Everybody in the world will believe that you are extremely affluent.

Question:
Dear Bolly, I am a five year old boy and talk like a 16 year old. I want a baby brother or sister. How do I get one?
Answer:
I am sorry that you are slow in development. 5 year old boys should be talking like 19 year olds. In any case, you might try an advanced technique to achieve your means. You start by asking your mom and dad to kiss you on either cheek. While their faces are in forward motion, with lips extended like suction cups, you slide your head out of the way. Completely oblivious of this change, your parents will continue the forward motion like two brain-dead zombies, to meet in the middle, causing a kiss to happen. A kiss on the lips is known to spontaneously produce a baby.

This is an old post I wrote when we were going to Europe several years ago. I have to recycle posts because I am busy the Hollywood writer’s strike is on.

—————————————————-

If you are a desi planning a trip to Europe, here is what you can expect:• Your wife will buy 4 tops, 3 pants and 2 pairs of shoes “for the trip,” even though she is only planning to pack 2 tops, 2 pants and 1 pair of shoes.• Some friends of yours will give you advice that will give Rick Steves’s “Europe Through Backdoor” a run for its money. The advice includes, “Pack a lot of murukulu or jantikalu so you can save some money on breakfast.”

• People will express their condolences because you won’t be eating rice for two or three weeks. They will question your patriotism for claiming you can survive happily on sandwiches and pasta for several weeks and provide unwanted counsel, “Pack a rice cooker, rice and some lentils so you can easily cook Indian food whenever you want.”

• Your wife will tell you, “Please please bring some nice clothes. Everybody in Europe dresses well and you will stick out in your shabby jeans.” Also, she will point out why none of the clothes you own fit the bill and take you to Macy’s and insist that you buy the pink shirt with yellow flowers.

• People who visited Europe before will question your intelligence because you are covering only 4 cities in 2 weeks instead of 15 cities across 6 countries.

• If you don’t have kids, all relatives will assume you will be planning kids soon after the trip and make their plans accordingly. Such as, your MIL saying, “I am visiting Turupathi right now, who knows I may have to be in the US in less than a year.”

• You will learn a few broken Spanish sentences and practice them on the office janitor.

• At least one of your desi friends will ask you how much the total trip will cost and roll their eyes. You can clearly see that they are thinking, “You idiots! You can buy a piece of land for that money in India!”

• You master the pronunciation of “Chamonix Mont Blanc” and demonstrate to a French friend. After half hour of demonstrating your pronunciation, you will end up writing it on the whiteboard for him to understand it.