Kishore Singh: Taken for a ride? Enjoy

Last night, when my son came back from dinner with his friends, he was greeted by the dog, who came wagging his tail — much to my son’s surprise, since he is largely ignored on account of the disciplining he received as a pup, and has clearly never quite forgotten it — and proceeded to puke all over his laptop. “It was his way of showing that he felt safe with you when he was feeling sick,” I commiserated with my son in the morning while we were having breakfast, which is when he usually gets up, but he was not easily consoled. “He was showing his annoyance,” he mocked me, “and by the way, I’ll need a new laptop.”

I must have been babbling about the ungratefulness of children and how much they cost when my wife happened by. “I can understand how you feel,” she agreed with me, “every time I give money to our daughter, which,” she assured me, “is every day.” “Halt right there,” I said back to her, “it is I who gives our daughter money every day, not you.” “Oh ho,” she retorted, “you don’t think I know who I am giving money to, and how much,” and it transpired that our little one, whom we thought to be naïf in matters of finance, had been skimming both of us without the other knowing about it. “She wanted money for a spa massage this morning,” my wife told me; “She took cash for a new dress from me,” I said to her. “I sent her to the salon to have her hair and nails done,” she added; “I insisted she use the credit card since she might want shoes to match her dress,” I was amazed at my daughter’s complicity through it all.

But it isn’t only the children who are having us on. My mother-in-law, who has been our guest long enough to be labelled a resident, has taken to having ice-cream ordered over the phone, a service provided by a neighbourhood vendor with an interesting range of flavours. My mother-in-law isn’t particularly partial to any flavour, but she does like her ice-cream, and using the children as a shield, offers to treat them should they call and place the order. Unfortunately, whenever the delivery happens, she’s never around to make the payment, pretending to be asleep, or in the toilet, so the servants add it to the hisaab that I take care of on a weekly basis, to which, lately, I’ve been finding daily deliveries of pizzas tacked on, and since the children are rarely home, I know an old lady who’s having herself a treat a day.

But who’s to blame her when the city appears full of old women who’re smarter than they have a right to be. For what else would explain their interest, at the height of summer, in my wife’s home retail business? Having rung up in advance, they arrive rouged and primped to chatter and gossip, while the servants fuss over them with cooling drinks and eats. They have their coffee, love the cake, “could stay for hours, dear”, while casting barely a glance at the purported reason of their visit, promising to be back “soon, you’re such a poppet”, while my wife makes faces. “They’re such pets,” I said to my wife, when she complained, “they must really care if they bother to brave the heat to spend the better part of the day with you.” “You silly old poop,” said my wife with a glaring lack of affection, “can’t you see they’re taking us for a ride, having themselves a kitty party while you and I,” she twisted in the knife, “are left to pay the bill for the air-conditioning they use.”