A boot-ylicious story

So Clueless came home for the weekend before flying off to India. Two of her friends came along with her, and one of them Soleil (an adorable Malaysian Chinese girl who refers to our place as “my Indian home”) stayed for the whole weekend. Viv and I slept early on Saturday night as we had badminton the next morning, but the two girls chattered on till very late. They were still asleep when we left for the game on Sunday morning.

On our way back from badminton, I asked Viv, "Do you think the girls would have woken up when we get home?" Viv said, "Soleil maybe, but not Clueless." Like most adoring older brothers, he trusts his sister's friends more than his sister.

"I bet Clueless is up too." I said.

"Naah... I don’t think so. I'm sure she's still sleeping." He said.

"Wanna bet? Okay, it's a bet. If she's up, you will give me 79 dollars. Okay?"

Viv didn't even raise an eyebrow at that statement.

He knows by now that if I want to buy something rather badly, I use such weird bets. They are just tactics to get out of the guilt. The guilt that arises out of being a girl and hence spending money on so many random things, while as a guy, he doesn’t have much to buy. So I have this weirdass bets with him which I win and then hop away to buy whatever I was eyeing, while he looks on amused. We don’t even have a my-money-your-money system. It was not like he was gonna open his wallet and give me 79 dollars to spend, I use my credit card for everything I buy. So to an outsider, this may not make sense at all. After all, when you’re a working gal, you can buy anything you want with the money you earn, and no one can question it. But sometimes, you just need that assurance that you’re not just blowing your money off on silly things (especially when it's an amount like $79, you feel better if you have 'the license to spend it'), you’re merely “spending money you won on a bet”. Tee hee!

So we went home, and both girls had woken up. Yipeee! I had just won myself 79 dollars. Viv was shaking his head at me and smiling. He knew that half the time, I don’t even buy anything after the stupid bets. But I get a real kick out of ‘winning the money’.

But this time, I was so gonna spend it. 'Cos it was time to reboot!

I may not be the greatest authority on computers, but I do know that when your computer crashes and nothing works, you gotta reboot. Rebooting - a concept that is just as relevant to life as it is to a CPU. When life seems like it's coming crashing down and nothing works, I 're-boot', i.e. I buy yet another pair of new shoes, and life's good again.

And I knew exactly what to do with the 79 dollars I had just won. They had been speaking to me, you see. The black boots on display at BHG, which would go fabulously with the muted purple dress with black sequins I had saved for my office Christmas party. (By the way, the dress was sponsored by one of my price-of-friendship thingies, I still have to recover the money though. Girl, if you're reading this, we have some accounts to settle, muahaha!).

So where were we? Yes, so the boots, they spoke. They put forth their case – like two lawyers in black coats. “People are so cynical these days. There are very few things they actually like. So if you're lucky enough to find something you really like, shouldn’t you grab it? Don't look at the price tag, woman, look at us!” Tell me - how can you counter such a beautiful argument? I bought the argument and the boots.

On the way back home, I decided to pick up some groceries and make my special pasta for dinner before Clueless flew off. The special pasta actually has very little pasta (carbs and all) and truckloads of vegetables. So I bought pasta sauce, broccoli, capsicum, cans of mushroom and babycorn, and also picked up two cartons of milk and a big loaf of bread for the next morning’s breakfast. Heavy stuff. By the time, I was done, it was raining as if it had never rained on earth before.

As I opened my umbrella, I noticed a man standing outside the supermarket. He smiled at me politely but what he meant was “Are you out of your mind, lady?”. So I smiled back at him politely, but what I really meant was "Wuss!" He was holding one of those large Laloo Prasad family-size umbrellas, and yet looking up at the sky and hesitating to step out. My blue umbrella is so tiny it can fit in my purse. And yet, the supermarket superwoman figured that her place was a just a short walk from here, she could just walk it.

Though I was carrying about six bags, I knew I just needed to protect the new boots from the rain. So held the paper bag with the shoebox close to my body, balanced the rest of the bags on various parts of my arms, and trodded on.

I was about 100 steps from home, when I heard it.

THUD!

THUD! THUD!

Oh my goodness, did someone get hit by a recklessly driven car? Shocked, I turned around. There was nothing.

And that’s when it struck me. Holy cow, the base of the paper bag with the boots had dissolved and collapsed, and the shoe box had fallen through the gaping hole! The other two THUD sounds were the milk cartons that had also decided to join the boots and play kaagaz ki kashti. Sheesh.

Next was the bag with the broccoli, followed by the capsicum. Holy cow.

It was at that point in time when I realised I did not have enough hands. I had bags on every part of my arms, and the umbrella between my chin and right shoulder. Not to mention that I was drenched to the marrow. How was I to pick up the shoes and how was I to carry them? So I thought – to hell with dignity and squatted down on the roadside in a manner that is only used in Indian toilets. To add to my embarrassment, a car actually stopped and the guy inside was almost going to get out and “take the poor woman who had collapsed by the roadside to the nearest hospital” but supermarket superwoman gestured him to get on with his life. I can only imagine his shock if the pasta sauce bottle had also fallen and broken, with the red sauce seemingly streaming from my body, mixing with the rainwater. That might have been fun.

Anyway, by some magical force, I found a hand to pick up the shoebox and clutched it to my chest like a baby, picked up the rest of my dignity along with the groceries and headed home. Finally, I made it, soaking wet.

The 20-odd pairs of shoes in the shoerack at my doorstep seemed to be mocking me. I'm used to it by now. I love all of them equally, but every time I reboot, I get a little resistance from them. I reckon this time they were also jealous because I had never clutched any of them the way I was clutching the new ones. I could sense the buggers rolling their eyes because I had decided to put the new shoes under my bed instead of out there in the open with them, braving the sun and the wind and the rain.

“Bite me!” I said and ignored their jealous looks.

(Holy cow, I just hope they don’t take my words literally.)

Home had never felt cosier as I got out of the soaking clothes and changed into warm, dry ones. As I checked the boots (they were surprisingly dry) before keeping them under the bed, I suddenly forgot all about the miserable situation I had been in a few minutes ago. I was happy again.

I had rebooted, you see.

***

Viv still has no idea about the boots. And I just realised that this post is a great way to find out whether he really reads my blog like he claims he does. Viv, if I do not get a reaction from you on this in the next 48 hours, you will err… owe me $49.90. Thank you.

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