Caution: Irrespective of what you read here the only lesson to learn is that it 's futile argue with your better half, precisely because that person is indeed the "better" half
It started when I decided to book the tennis courts at the tennis centre for 9:00 to 11:00 PM. Of course, my partner was to be hubby darling, so I checked his availability, which I got in ambiguous terms, but knowing his indecision I nonetheless confirmed my booking, and of course communicated the same to him. He ACKed (as a telecom person, I should've recognized the significance of an ACK v/s a CONFIRM or ACCEPT !)
On his way back from office, he realised his car-pool pal had forgotten his cellphone in office so they turned around. Point being, it was almost time to leave for the tennis court when time hubby touched home base. Any rational person can imagine my exasperation when he met me with the news that he had arranged to meet his cronies between 8:00 to 10:PM. I was prepared to tear out his hair and skin, but sufficed with some old fashioned slamming in the kitchen. Finally, like any married couple we "compromised"; he'd get out of his game early so we get sufficient time to hit some balls.
Thus placated I stormed out of the house to the car, and thence started the ordeal. Usually irrespective of who locks the house, I handle the keys. But remember, I was bugged, I was storming out, so hubby took on a new responsibility. At the tennis centre I sat reading Management Principles (by Dogbert) and counted each second of the 90 minutes, while hubby tried in vain to get his returns to cross the net. Oh, the sadistic pleasure :-)
Soon the half-hourly bell tolled and it was 9:30 PM. After practising some serves we were in business. Oh, I forgot to mention that sometime earlier I had gone to the car to get my wristband, and in the process removed the keys to the car from hubby's racket bag. Anyway, several straight hitting, cross courts, down the line, forehands, backhands, overheads, volleys and approach shots later the bell rang for 11:00 PM and it was time to go home.
Hubby looked through his bag and not finding the car keys turned to me; I assured him I had them in my bag, dug about in the Sports Authority bag I carry, and excavated it from all the other meaningful items therein.
After 3 hours of play hubby was tired, but it is a matter of principle that I don't drive at night unless an emergency, so he drove the 25 minutes it takes us to reach home. On the way I persuaded him to detour and he grumpily drove extra 4 miles in the opposite direction to the 7-11 store. I wisely picked some Butterfinger ice-cream; the wise say way to a man's heart is through his stomach. His smile was evidence enough. In the apartment parking lot he put out his hand for the house keys and there unfolded the truth.
"I don't have them", I said.
"You said, you did", he said.
"I thought you meant the car keys, which indeed I did have", said he.
"I was asking about _all_ the keys", he said.
That went on for some time, but basically the plot was the same. Finally we realised, it was 11:30 PM, the parking lot was windy, getting colder and we were locked out of the house! Principles of problem solving tell us, problem definition is 50% problem solution. But here we were no closer to entering our home. Remember, I had stormed out of the house? So I wisely considered the fact that hubby had forgotten to lock up and we wishfully plodded to our unit and rattled the door knob sufficiently to be convinced it was indeed locked. What next?
Hubby called the tennis center to check for a set of lonely keys, but the center was already closed; it was after all past 11:30 PM on a Friday night.
"Lets book into Marriot", said hubby.
"What?! Are you nuts? Walk into Marriot in these sweaty clothes? No way!", said I, dredging up every shred of fashion consciousness I had.
Hubby suggested 911 but I refused; my principles did not allow me to waste tax payers' money on a non-emergency.
We decided to call the cops; but not having been in any cop-sy situation we didn't know the number. In fact we were unaware of where the town police station was! I suggested walking into the Fire Department office and SOS-ing them, but hubby vetoed saying "have you seen any movies where people simply walk into the fire department?". I wanted to refer to Mr.Monk but, well, that was beside the point.
A brainwave later we called 411, got the local police station phone number and hubby had a friendly chat with person in charge. The result was an overawed hubby and still no entry into our home; the cops were friendly and even suggested they'd send out a trooper, but sorry, they couldn't break down the door or pick the lock. And no, they didn't have any ladder or rope that would let hubby climb into our 1st floor balcony. It was after all a non-emergency. Ah-haah!
For one insane moment, hubby contemplated attempting to scale up the icy banister, but gave up the thought when I tentatively suggested it might be tad slippery and falling down was certain to wake the neighbours. Forever considerate, my hubby ;-)
Last resort, friends; after all a friend in need is a friend indeed (sic!). A process of elimination based on early sleepers left us with only one name; my friend who had just moved into a shared accommodation. I knew she kept late hours, as did her landlady. After a sheepish and hesitant conversation I was reassured it would be perfectly fine to show up at this late hour.
And so, we GPS-ed our way to her apartment. She was waiting at the door wrapped in a shawl. Laughing at our plight we all turned to enter the house and ... oh horror.. we were locked out again. When she stepped out to greet us the door had snapped shut behind her !
Luckily her landlady was home and another quick sheepish call later we were warmly ensconced in makeshift beds of sleeping bags, quickly thrown together assortment of comforters and cushions, and an oversized T-shirt that my relatively petite friend could find for me.
We woke up to a bright morning, and a bracing cup of coffee later were back to operation key-hunt. The tennis centre had nothing; we even drove there to see for ourselves. Being a weekend, the site office at our plaza was closed and would open only on Tuesday; sometimes long weekends can be rather tedious. Finally, hubby called our house owner, who was fortunately free to drive 10 minutes to let us into our home.
Home, sweet home !! Oh the pleasure of the couch, TV remote and rice with fried fish ;-)
But guess what?! The keys were finally located at the tennis center. So much for all the puzzling about the mystery of the lost bunch of keys.
..Oh, and... Happy Valentine's Day! :-)
It started when I decided to book the tennis courts at the tennis centre for 9:00 to 11:00 PM. Of course, my partner was to be hubby darling, so I checked his availability, which I got in ambiguous terms, but knowing his indecision I nonetheless confirmed my booking, and of course communicated the same to him. He ACKed (as a telecom person, I should've recognized the significance of an ACK v/s a CONFIRM or ACCEPT !)
On his way back from office, he realised his car-pool pal had forgotten his cellphone in office so they turned around. Point being, it was almost time to leave for the tennis court when time hubby touched home base. Any rational person can imagine my exasperation when he met me with the news that he had arranged to meet his cronies between 8:00 to 10:PM. I was prepared to tear out his hair and skin, but sufficed with some old fashioned slamming in the kitchen. Finally, like any married couple we "compromised"; he'd get out of his game early so we get sufficient time to hit some balls.
Thus placated I stormed out of the house to the car, and thence started the ordeal. Usually irrespective of who locks the house, I handle the keys. But remember, I was bugged, I was storming out, so hubby took on a new responsibility. At the tennis centre I sat reading Management Principles (by Dogbert) and counted each second of the 90 minutes, while hubby tried in vain to get his returns to cross the net. Oh, the sadistic pleasure :-)
Soon the half-hourly bell tolled and it was 9:30 PM. After practising some serves we were in business. Oh, I forgot to mention that sometime earlier I had gone to the car to get my wristband, and in the process removed the keys to the car from hubby's racket bag. Anyway, several straight hitting, cross courts, down the line, forehands, backhands, overheads, volleys and approach shots later the bell rang for 11:00 PM and it was time to go home.
Hubby looked through his bag and not finding the car keys turned to me; I assured him I had them in my bag, dug about in the Sports Authority bag I carry, and excavated it from all the other meaningful items therein.
After 3 hours of play hubby was tired, but it is a matter of principle that I don't drive at night unless an emergency, so he drove the 25 minutes it takes us to reach home. On the way I persuaded him to detour and he grumpily drove extra 4 miles in the opposite direction to the 7-11 store. I wisely picked some Butterfinger ice-cream; the wise say way to a man's heart is through his stomach. His smile was evidence enough. In the apartment parking lot he put out his hand for the house keys and there unfolded the truth.
"I don't have them", I said.
"You said, you did", he said.
"I thought you meant the car keys, which indeed I did have", said he.
"I was asking about _all_ the keys", he said.
That went on for some time, but basically the plot was the same. Finally we realised, it was 11:30 PM, the parking lot was windy, getting colder and we were locked out of the house! Principles of problem solving tell us, problem definition is 50% problem solution. But here we were no closer to entering our home. Remember, I had stormed out of the house? So I wisely considered the fact that hubby had forgotten to lock up and we wishfully plodded to our unit and rattled the door knob sufficiently to be convinced it was indeed locked. What next?
Hubby called the tennis center to check for a set of lonely keys, but the center was already closed; it was after all past 11:30 PM on a Friday night.
"Lets book into Marriot", said hubby.
"What?! Are you nuts? Walk into Marriot in these sweaty clothes? No way!", said I, dredging up every shred of fashion consciousness I had.
Hubby suggested 911 but I refused; my principles did not allow me to waste tax payers' money on a non-emergency.
We decided to call the cops; but not having been in any cop-sy situation we didn't know the number. In fact we were unaware of where the town police station was! I suggested walking into the Fire Department office and SOS-ing them, but hubby vetoed saying "have you seen any movies where people simply walk into the fire department?". I wanted to refer to Mr.Monk but, well, that was beside the point.
A brainwave later we called 411, got the local police station phone number and hubby had a friendly chat with person in charge. The result was an overawed hubby and still no entry into our home; the cops were friendly and even suggested they'd send out a trooper, but sorry, they couldn't break down the door or pick the lock. And no, they didn't have any ladder or rope that would let hubby climb into our 1st floor balcony. It was after all a non-emergency. Ah-haah!
For one insane moment, hubby contemplated attempting to scale up the icy banister, but gave up the thought when I tentatively suggested it might be tad slippery and falling down was certain to wake the neighbours. Forever considerate, my hubby ;-)
Last resort, friends; after all a friend in need is a friend indeed (sic!). A process of elimination based on early sleepers left us with only one name; my friend who had just moved into a shared accommodation. I knew she kept late hours, as did her landlady. After a sheepish and hesitant conversation I was reassured it would be perfectly fine to show up at this late hour.
And so, we GPS-ed our way to her apartment. She was waiting at the door wrapped in a shawl. Laughing at our plight we all turned to enter the house and ... oh horror.. we were locked out again. When she stepped out to greet us the door had snapped shut behind her !
Luckily her landlady was home and another quick sheepish call later we were warmly ensconced in makeshift beds of sleeping bags, quickly thrown together assortment of comforters and cushions, and an oversized T-shirt that my relatively petite friend could find for me.
We woke up to a bright morning, and a bracing cup of coffee later were back to operation key-hunt. The tennis centre had nothing; we even drove there to see for ourselves. Being a weekend, the site office at our plaza was closed and would open only on Tuesday; sometimes long weekends can be rather tedious. Finally, hubby called our house owner, who was fortunately free to drive 10 minutes to let us into our home.
Home, sweet home !! Oh the pleasure of the couch, TV remote and rice with fried fish ;-)
But guess what?! The keys were finally located at the tennis center. So much for all the puzzling about the mystery of the lost bunch of keys.
..Oh, and... Happy Valentine's Day! :-)
Posts
hahaha.. What a wonderful way to spend V-Day.. Happy V-Day.... :)
ReplyDelete-C
Wow! - that must have been one hell of a V-day! LOL
ReplyDeleteIt was indeed !! ;-)
ReplyDelete