What’s the most beautiful thing in the world? — “Retrospect”, usually comes far too fucking late!
Waltzing through life, one often encounters situations where one’s wits and responses fail one. Too many films and books and stories have deluded us into believing that a perfect comeback or a perfect resolution is always a stone’s throw away. In fact, you and I are more united in the feeling of what I call a “flashback comeback”. As the term suggests, it is that perfect or befitting feeling or response that we retrospectively think of. While replies do not generally translate, resolutions do. Therefore, I now present to you some of the lesser-known life hacks.
While life might find you standing witless,
my friends, I won’t let you die scared shitless!
The below are obviously really specific and have been gleaned from real-life experiences! Make no mistake — they work! My lack of fear in disrupting social impropriety means that I have tried these to no end, and yes, you may use them:
Sexy airlines with unsexy practices
Their flights are also known as “Tempo rides of the air”. The ugliest beings on the planet have to call themselves “beautiful”, the non-scientific streams of study have to call themselves “Science”, and the most wretched experience in the air in India names each of its flights as sexy. From their uncushioned seats to their shitty ACs, from their uncurtained hostess zones (notice they use trays to block the zone if the pilot needs to use the loo because they ain’t got no curtains), to their tacky logo. They have zero pillows or blankets. Even their tissue paper sucks. Every time I have the displeasure of flying with them, I ask myself, was quitting consulting worth it?
One thing that might unite us Desis is our hatred for this dilapidated, second-rate, life-sucking air machine. Even their name is rooted in colonial trauma for us. How do you pay these muggers back? Hmmm.. I have a way, and it’s pretty neat!
Through logic and deduction, I discovered a neat little trick. For all the services and trays that are sold during the flight, one is asked to use a credit card (I’m assuming you don’t have black money). The process of swiping it and entering your PIN is followed, and almost routinely we assume that our transaction is completed there. What the public does not know is that domestic flights with these miserly maggots do not possess the internet. Without the internet, the credit card and PIN details can’t be verified. Instead of completing the transaction at that point, they just queue it. The transaction is executed post-landing.
So the payback is this — you buy what you wanna buy with the wrong PIN! It shows up as successful in the air. The transaction fails on the ground. It has been tried by several people several times!!! Try it next time, do a good thing — buy your row boxes of roasted almonds.
Now be careful, don’t share this with a lot of people. While you may wonder why I would share this in public if I wanted it kept obscure, a friend recently intimated to me that people don’t really read much — unless it’s on Instagram posts, has images, or is on Kindle — you pathetically peripatetic pleb. So I can safely assume that this won’t go viral.
DJ without a JD is a BT
Have you ever been at a home-afters where the supposed self-proclaimed DJ of the night (not decided by the audience, btw) decides to absolutely hog the playlist and the speaker, playing songs and mixing songs that are not really his forte, and not reading the room while he does it? On top of his tone-deafness, there is his stubbornness to not change tracks or give others a chance.
Raves are PLURs — please understand!!!!
And I don’t normally slag my own, but almost always — men have a monopoly on closeted insufferability.
These folks aren’t necessarily pricks from the get-go. In fact, you might even be inclined to like them at first glance, but give them the stage for long enough and watch them disappear into their own assholes. It’s just that they have not been exposed to feedback loops and rules of social engagement like the rest of us.
So! What does one do? How does one “show” the blind, “sound” out the deaf? How does one bend a canine’s tail? Protest? Sarcasm? Force? — Nope, nope, nope — these are not PLUR. Plus, at an afters, these won’t work — people are zoomied out of their minds.
One does what my main man MKG would’ve done! Silent protest!
You take your friend (one at a time) to another room (the TOP UP room ;-)), and start playing your stuff (even at low volumes). Then you ping your “allies” to top up! Pretty soon, your room becomes the belle of the ball. One by one, your folks trickle in until all those who are left suffering through the deaf DJ’s ordeal are his never-complaining “friends”.
The only problem being, no speakers!!!
As an ordinary man once wisely said, “What good is a speaker without an audience?”
Pretty soon, the host of the night will be compelled to draw you out of this bubble. But stay strong, friends, hold the host’s vibe hostage, and make explicit demands of changing the DJ or the playlist for the next hour or so. I say an hour because, after not listening to his own peddled nonsense for an hour, the bespoke DJ will leave, for he is anti-PLUR. He cannot stand others taking the limelight, or others playing their tunes!
Remember, folks — DJ or not, get the JD and don’t be a BT!
Sob stories for social suaveness
This one is my favorite!
Do you hate unnecessary personal questions aimed at you by strangers? Do you ever feel rolling your eyes should be an acceptable social action, much like the shrug? Do you need an escape from inquisitions meant to belittle? I have a solve for y’all. And no… it’s much more pointed than “Mummy ne bola hai!” / “Mummy ne bulaaya hai!”.
Sob stories!
Ever tried finagling sympathy or sadness to get a green light? Being upset allows you to be more indecorous and awkward than you can imagine.
My mantra — carry 5 sob stories in your pocket at all times.
If someone asks me, “Why did you quit your previous job?”
“Aaah, my health took a toll, and my dad got serious dengue. I wanted to be with him for a couple of weeks straight, and the firm wouldn’t allow it. I told them to fuck off.”
Or a more convoluted one….
“Why do you speak like that?/Why is your accent so different from someone from Ranchi?”
I used to be annoyed at this until I watched The King’s Speech.
My usual response now is:
“I used to stammer when I was a kid. It had to do with a childhood trauma. I had to do a lot of speech therapy — they used to put marbles in my mouth to control my tics. That’s also how I started smoking, as they mistakenly believed it helps with stammering. And guess what — I don’t stammer now! Although I did have to relearn speaking.”
And then I question back:
“When did you become such an asshole?” (JK)
None of these sob stories are true, but who cares? They allow me to act with indifference, and guess what? Yayyyyy!
Disobedient dog & Stiff parents
My boy (well, technically my nephew), Coco, isn’t the most obedient dog. In fact, we suspect that given a chance to train with a bomb squad, the best he would sniff up is a cast-away Parle-G packet.
Pretty he is, and God does compensate, but that does not make up for the absolute tomfoolery he makes of training cues and signals. After 6 years of wasteful training sessions, all he still responds to, might I add when he feels like it, is — “Sit”, “Coco”, “Leave”, “Khana”, “Maa”, “Monty”, “Thapa”, “Paani”.
And obviously… “Chalo”, that’s his cue to hop into the car.
Kim K failing her bar exams 5 times in a row and Coco, with his limited vocabulary, besmirching the Labrador name belong to a different class of bums(big ones). Pretty privilege is real.
I think him being a COVID kid is at the root of it all. The pretty little COVID kid does not like wearing a collar because — why should I wear a collar? I am never alone, I have all this space to roll around.
This is what you get.
Anyways, the only way to really get him to come to you or to attract his attention is to hug another person, or better yet, pet another dog. Envious of attention that he is, watch him dance!
How I got my mom to learn how to swim & how did Varun get his mom to start working out?
It is very simple, pay the fees to the swimming academy/gym for a month. The pre-liberalisation middle-class mindset dictates that our parents make every penny count. Knowing them and knowing how addictive workout/sport activities are, they are bound to let it sink (or swim) in.
One of the more noteworthy achievements from my last year is helping my mom get into the pool and learn this craft.
That’s it, no witty insights here.
Folks, make it count!!!!!
-Honeybunny