The other day, I went to the L&M and told him I wanted to buy a hair dryer.

Not an earth shattering announcement as such, but my hair is so closely cropped that any self-respecting hair dryer would feel ashamed to be associated with me —or my head.

Anyway, back to the L&M. He looked up from the book he was reading. Surprise was writ large on his face. And there was something else too on his face. Not the moustache, silly! That has been there for close to half a century now.

This was something else and it was at its beginning stage. I knew for certain it was growing at an alarming rate (I told you it wasn’t the moustache!) and would ultimately explode at my expense.

Before that could happen, I quickly intervened.

“It’s not for my hair!” I said pulling at my one-centimetre long crew cut hair to make things clear.

Now I could see confusion join the party on his face, right where the other thing—amusement, in case you hadn’t guessed—was steadily growing. where there was that growing other thing. The confusion had a sincere look that said: I hope it is not for drying the clothes… or utensils or…

He knows he has a wife who is practical to a fault. But still, one never knows, right? If one cell—or whatever those thingamabobs are who do these things—decided to deviate from its ordained path, practical people could turn impractical in a jiffy. It must say so somewhere in the Book of DNA.

The L&M looked lost. I took pity on the poor man and decided to enlighten him. What are wives for, anyway? We have been enlighten-ers par excellence from time immemorial. If not for our enlightening nature, the whole of mankind (see how I didn’t use humankind there? Ha!) would have perished loooong ago.

“It’s for my art work,” I said.

He now wore a does-art-need-to-dry-its-hair? kind of expression.

I smote my forehead. Men are such babes in the wood, I tell you!

“It’s to get the liquid pain flowing, and make pretty, wiggly designs!”

At last confusion gave way to dawning realisation. Of course he knew all about the paints his wife played around with and could guess the importance of liquid paint doing a wiggly dances on paper or canvas as far as she was concerned. After running through a gamut of emotions in under a minute, the L&M’s face finally took on the restful and contented look of a man suitably enlightened.

As for the hair dryer, it has arrived, sent posthaste by Amazon as if lives depended on it. Time for the paints to flow, and wiggle.

Or wiggle and flow. Whatever. 🙂

©️ Shail Mohan 2026

[You know how bad I am with titles for my posts. I write posts in a jiffy and then spend hours, days brooding over its title. Well, this time I asked ChatGPT to give me one, and boy, did it give me seven! I have to admit, I loved them all, but I chose the one I liked best.]