What I Learned from Life

It was the year in which the movie Poltergeist was released. We were juniors in school and had rented out the movie and watched it at home. Later that week, me and my sisters were doing our homework in front of the television at night. At that time we had a power failure. It was a three dimensional television and the screen had a greenish tinge and in the darkness cast an eerie light. The next minute both of dashed out of the room in full speed and bumped into our mother in the hallway. To this date we laugh when we reminiscence this.

We moved into a new neighborhood that has rows and rows of identical houses in different streets. While settling in the new house I got a frantic call from my husband on my mobile, the second evening at the new place, “I am at the doorstep of a house that looks like ours, but the woman answering the door doesn’t look like you!”

The other day, when I arrived in San Francisco airport I could not find my luggage in the baggage area. So I approached a lady in the office and complained that my luggage had not showed up and I was running late. She told me not to worry and said she was a trained professional and would help me to locate it. I was perplexed when she asked me whether my plane had arrived!!

I was complaining to my husband that I could do with a little help in the kitchen to clean up after the party each time. I wish I hadn’t. He absently left the filled-up trash bag safely on the shelf and dumped the fresh bag of unused paper plates and spoons in the trash can.

We were discussing how sad it was that the popular camel race in mid Eastern countries allowed young children to be strapped to the camels’ backs on the pretext that the camels would run faster hearing the children’s frantic cries. Some wise guy in class, probably an animal activist said, “Poor camels!”

The other day, I had gone to a birthday party of a little girl. It was a costume birthday party which said in the invitation, ‘Come if you dare, ‘Inviting all Witches and Wizards, Ghosts and Ghouls, the scarier the better!! The venue had a skull placard with open mouth serving as entrance, and lots of spooky monsters cutouts and skull lanterns hung in the garden. There were little witches, wizards, Dracula, Harry Potter etc doing the treasure hunt and it was really amazing and different.