I know what I don’t like,” said my wife at breakfast, “I don’t like my daughter sharing my makeup.” (“I wouldn’t even dream of sharing your makeup, it’s so Auntieji,” my daughter retorted right back, but since this isn’t about their fights, which are commonplace, or even about them, I’ll let it be — for now.) “Are there other things you don’t like,” I asked my wife, and seeing her look up nastily, hastened to add, “people not included, that is?”
“Since I suppose your description of people includes in-laws,” mused my wife, “and my best friend Sarla who isn’t, these days, my best friend, I don’t suppose there’s anything left that I don’t really like.” But my wife is a slow starter in the mornings, so having sipped her coffee, she decided there were some things she didn’t like after all. “I don’t like diets,” she said, which, given that she’s tried so many, and is sometimes on several diets simultaneously, I find difficult to believe, but I’d rather risk the wrath of the boss than cross anything my wife says, so I nodded. “I don’t like thinness,” she extrapolated to mean thin people, “I don’t like having to do the house work” — which, of course, she doesn’t — “and I don’t like wearing, though I suppose I have to, stilettos, stockings or corsets.”
At this point, of course, she’d only just got started. I was taking a shower when she banged on the bathroom door to tell me some more things she’d remembered she doesn’t like: “travelling by road” (which I love), “books with a print that is too fine, garlic on people’s breath” (though she doesn’t mind eating onions herself), “hair dye” (she “colours”, she insists), “this bakwas about punctuality” (if she’s late going somewhere, she squares up by expecting people to be late when they come to visit her) — and, oh, “I don’t like fried things”, which is a lie and only because she’s on a diet that debars her from fried stuff totally, so she was probably only saying it for effect, or to bolster her conscience.
Once started, there was no stopping her after all. “I don’t like mobile phones,” she called from her mobile phone to say. “I don’t like alarm clocks, or attending parent-teacher meetings, or calendars, or growing old, or” — she pushed away a bowl of raw vegetables from the dining table — “raw vegetables”. Late at night, just as I was dropping off to sleep, and she had just said that she didn’t like the smell of mothballs or pyrrhic teeth, or body odour, she finally remembered to ask, “Was there any reason you wanted to ask me about the things that I don’t like?” “It was merely rhetorical,” I said, “though I did want to share some things that I don’t think I like any more.” “Then,” she sighed, “I suppose you must tell me what these are, though I hope you won’t take too long, as I also don’t like to sleep late.”
“Actually,” I said, “there are just three things. One, I don’t like going to pubs, or lounges, where the lights are so dark that you don’t say hello to the people you know, and then they’re so upset that they no longer talk to you.” My wife waved her hand, egging me to continue. “Two,” I said, “I don’t like going to places where the music is so loud that you have to shout, and then you can’t hear even yourself speak.” “Yes, yes,” said my wife, “what else?” “Three,” I said, “I don’t like parties where you’re invited at dinner-time but served only snacks.” “I suppose that is true,” said my wife, “but I’ve just remembered something I especially don’t like, and that is lists, or people who make lists.”