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fun, funny, humor, ramblings, RamblingsInFebruary, second born, short, sons, tall, tongue in cheek
When you have been an empty-nester for a while and your son comes home to stay (and plans on being around for a while), you suddenly find the slow pace of your life has changed to a faster one. The long silences are now littered with doses of laughter and animated discussions (also arguments). There is someone close by for you to annoy and who in turn annoys you much to the chagrin of the senior-most man of the house. Luci has one more person to pamper her and also to take her for (longer) walks. But the best of all is the fact that there is someone in residence who knows enough to rustle up tasty dishes for dinner. I am of course, talking about the Second Born.
Though I love cooking, I also equally love passing on the onus of preparing dinner to someone else and relaxing of an evening, or as in this case, playing the minion to the chef-of-the-night. Capsicum? Here it is. Have the carrots been washed? Right away! What, you haven’t made the Thai curry paste? You are wasting my time! Poda! By the time you cut vegetables, it will be ready (Phew, almost slipped up there. I was supposed to keep it ready). See what I mean? Then I go about putting things away while he cooks and also sets the table. The final clearing up is done by the L&M.
I watch in admiration as the SB makes stir-fried veggies, expertly tossing the contents in the pan and sigh. I secretly covet the ability to do that, but I know it is not for me. I am too short and the kitchen slab is too high. I’d probably end up decorating my face with the sauce smeared veggies. Nobody has short people in mind when designing things. Tables at restaurants are almost always too high. Chairs too. At most places I find my legs dangling way above the floor. The best part is how people think it funny when I mention this. Well, there is that, it evokes laughter.
Being tall certainly has its advantages. You can toss veggies as high as you want, no looking down from chairs where you are seated and finding the floor too far away for comfort. For another, tall people can keep away things that belong to shorter people on top of tall almirahs and have them, the short people that is, wander around looking for and never finding them.
The very thing happened to me recently. I couldn’t find my back-scratcher. I looked for it everywhere. Finally it was located on top of the tall steel almirah, quite by accident, by the visiting sister. I don’t have to spell it out to you how the back-scratcher happened to have got there, do I? There is only one person in this house who is more than six feet and keeps things away at heights unreachable to the wife who is exactly one foot shorter to him. I am sure he will contend the charge, but tell me, who else could have kept it up there? Luci?
One day, I discovered the world as the tall people saw it and was awestruck. It so happened that I had to put a few things away in one of the top shelves in the kitchen. Since no one was around to help, I climbed a plastic stool and did the needful. Now it so happened that the plastic stool was exactly one foot high. When I turned around and looked at the kitchen from that angle, it struck me with force. Gosh! THIS was how the L&M saw things from his height of six feet plus. How different everything looked from up there. It was a totally different world view… umm I mean kitchen view.
There is one thing I learnt from all this. I was doing it all wrong when I looked this way and that in the mirror to check how I looked before going out. By doing that I was only finding out how I looked to myself. Everyone I knew was taller than me and had a view of me that was from higher up. So now I hold the mirror up and check to know how I look to others. That’s when I stopped worrying about my double chin. From that position no one could even see it. Howzzat? The tall people on the other hand had to clearly watch out for their wobbly double chins, because that would be the first thing visible to those shorter when they looked up.
Egad. How the heck did this post go from the son and stir-fried veggies to double chins?! Ahh, I guess that’s how it goes when you ramble on unchecked making the most of a quiet Sunday night after partaking of green Thai curry and sticky rice. And oh, here’s the advantage of being short: You never, never, ever have to fear your head hitting the roof. 😉
©Shail Mohan 2017
OMG, I have done that too. When I was in grad school, my best friend was a boy who had legs that never seemed to end. He was also my lab partner and was incharge of taking the chemicals from the top shelf of the chemicals rack – mind you I am not short, tall for an Indian woman, but not quite as tall as this friend of mine. One time, he was absent, and I had to get on a stool to get the chemicals, and the world seemed to look different from there. I thought to myself “oh, so this is how the world looks for G” and then feels a little foolish for the experience – I mean, who thinks something wacky as that? Even now, sometimes I stand on a little footstool to see the world from my husband’s eyes. I thought it was my very own quirk. Good to know I have company.
Also, being tall has nothing to do with being able to toss vegetables in the wok. Clumsy tall people like me can spill vegetables by just looking at them.
ROFL. Peas in a pod, I tell you 😉 Glad to know not all tall people can toss vegetables! Haha.
“felt a little foolish” not feels a little foolish – I suspect it was autocorrect although I wouldn’t put it past my carelessness !
😀
Such a delightful journey from Thai style veggies to chins to being one foot taller! Fortunately my spouse is not all that tall, so is unlikely to see how grubby the top of the fridge can get!
There’s that advantage. I actually had the experience of a tall friend laugh derisively and scrape out some dust from the top of the fridge (which was a good foot taller than me) 😦
Thank you, Dipali. Glad you enjoyed the post 🙂