Family Phone Moments

When I was in college, I would call home frequently. These are the ensuing craziness . . .

Me: “Hi mom, how are you?”
No “Hi, I’m good. How are you?” but instead
Mom: “Which boy do you like the best? S___, T___, or D____?”
By like she meant which one would you prefer to spend the rest of your life with.

When I called the house, my baby brother picked up the phone. Instead of the usual "Hey, how are you?"" I get: “Do you poop well? Cus I have a product that will make you poop well.”
Never too sure how to respond to such a question.

Calling home and my brother picks up.
Phil: “So Mom likes Justin Bieber; she thinks he’s cute.”
Me: “Ask her if she knows who that is.”
In the background, Mom: “I know who he is . . . He’s a singer.”
Me: “Ask her if she likes Usher.”
In the background
Mom: “I like him too! He looks like a nice person. He has that song ‘Oh My Gosh! . . .there‘s so many ways to love you . . . Oh oh oh.’ ”
And she continues singing the rest of the song. Keep in mind she’s close to fifty.

Yet another phone call home.

Me: “Hey Mom, what are you guys doing?”

Mom: “Watching tv with your brothers.”

Me: “What are you watching?”

Mom in half Malayalam and half English: “Some show about old famous people that are drug addicted or drink too much. It’s on V something. Neil, what channel is this? . . . It’s VH1”

Me: hey mom, there’s a channel that shows soap operas all day long.

Mom: What channel?! Do they have the Bold and the Beautiful?”

She’s been watching that one for the last 15 year of my life

Quote of the Day

Random quotes from over the years from different friends and family that I remembered and wrote down with no intent of showing them to the world. And yet, here I am. There's a reason why I like to keep them anonymous.

Part of a longer conversation of randomness
"You can make me paralyzed with amazement just by staring at me with those gorgeous eyes. You could be like Medusa and you wouldn't even have to beat me up.
You can run 9,000 miles. There's no way I'll ever get away. Better to just get beat up by you."

Yet another one with a different friend.
"By the way, you're house is calling me while I'm on the phone with you. Care to explain?"

Theory of Likeability

Of my three closest guy friends, one is what I like to call the funny asshole. He’s blunt but funny. More often than not, what comes out of his mouth are the truths that most don’t want to acknowledge, even if it’s what everyone else is thinking. This is what I call A___’s theory of likeability aka how to get people to like you. This started off as a random daily conversation and then morphed into a value added lesson. I take no credit for the following. 

 “One thing that I find works: if you want someone to like you, ask them to do little things for you. Gradually increase the things you ask for. Just start with something small, like ‘Pick that up for me’ or ‘could you give me a ride here if it’s on your way.’ Then you give them a biscuit with gratitude and a little charm.”

Note: metaphorical biscuit, not actual.

“There’s a second part to this. When you ask people to do stuff for you, sometimes you got to do nice things, like buy them ice cream when they least expect it. Coffee, pick up a cheap lunch. We call this ADDED VALUE. Thank you's that actually come off as really thoughtful yet inexpensive. Then before you know it, you got someone taking your notes for you! And all you got them was a Jr Bacon in return! I’m telling you try it! Works with boys and girls!”

Family Moments

My parents have a strange sense of humor that only they seem to understand. One night while the brothers were out, I'm sitting in the living room talking to them, when suddenly my mom asks my dad point blank, "Do you love me?"
He says all nonchalantly, "No."
They continue to stare at each other, while a smile grows on both their faces. Before long, they burst out laughing, leaving me totally confused.


My brothers are telling me how we have a Ferrari and Bentley dealership in Alpharetta, AKA Suburbia, when my mom says, "I saw a Maserati a few days ago when I was driving somewhere with your dad."
Me: "You know the difference between a Ferrari and a Maserati?!"
Mom: "Duh . . ."
Some days, I feel so behind.


More about my rather random mother . . .
I went to a EDM festival called TomorrowWorld in Georgia the year it started. I was showing her the trailer, when she asks, "Can I come with you??"
Surprisingly, imagining my mother at an EDM festival wasn't the craziest idea, and for a short moment in time, I actually considered it.

Parental Moment
When we went out to dinner with the family for my birthday, I forgot my ID, so my parents got me the drink I wanted. After a drink (a few), the parentals got tipsy and the following conversation ensued.
Parents: You're lucky you got us for parents.
Me: How so?
Parents: What other parents buy their daughter alcohol? No one! We're so cool!
Me: Um . . . no.
Parents: Yes, we are.
Me: Buying your kid a drink is normal. I know parents who do that. You guys aren't special.
Parents: . . .
Me: My friend's mom bought her beer at the liquor store and she's Indian.
Parents: . . . well, at least we have class. We didn't buy you cheap stuff like beer.
They always have to have the last word.

Indian Kid Problems #1

There are certain things in life only kids raised by immigrant parents will ever really get. I was born and raised in the US by Indian immigrants. Here are a few stereotypes/issues that every 1st generation kid can understand.

Gossip
I could go on for hours on this topic, but an example will have to do. Last month, I went to my cousin's wedding. The day after the wedding, I went over to my aunt and uncle's hotel room to where a group of the parents were. I went mainly to go play with the kids. While I'm playing with my younger cousins, I start the parents start bitching about who they got stuck sitting with at the wedding. Who did this, who was being rude, how rude they are, and how they have no class, et cetera, et cetera. That is just the tip of the iceberg. It hasn't even been a full 24 hours and the gossip has begun.
There's a stereotype among our generation that goes a little like this: you go to someone's house and everyone is nice to each other. The minute you leave, they start talking about you. Your car has barely left the driveway when they start in on you. I've been privy to this more than once. As a friend once put it, "Some aunties need to be hired by TMZ. At least they'll make some money off of all the gossip they got. They'd never go out of business!" Ensuing eye roll . . .

2-20 are in the works.

More to come . . .

Black Doos

So I've been recently inspired to write even though I really don't have the time, really really don't. But, my conversations with a friend have reminded me how much I love this. I haven't abandoned this blog. I've just been putting it off, thanks to grad school, exams, etc. Luckily, grad school is now over. I still have boards to take, that I'm in the process of studying for, but as soon as that's over, I'm getting back to this. I have quite a few stories to write and complete. But since I don't have time for a full length story, I'll stick to something small.

My family is far from politically correct. We're racist for sure, but then again, so is everyone else for that matter. Don't try to argue that. We all have our biases and prejudices, whether we acknowledge them or not. One day, my youngest brother was wearing his shorts, which hung pretty low. They were low enough that you could see his boxers, not intentional of course, but that's not how my dad saw it. My dad has a very strong Indian accent, which he refuses to fix. It can cause all kinds of trouble, like the following.

My father, upon seeing my brother's boxers, became really angry. You could see the anger on his face. He says to my brother, "Are you trying to be black doos?!"
Obviously, we're all a little confused by what he's saying.
"A black what?!"
"A black doos!!"
I still don't understand, but my mother did, based on her sudden laughter.
"Black dude, not black doos!"


Everyone breaks out laughing, even my accidentally funny dad.

Once in a Blue Moon

       There is a reason why my stories are dubbed the Reverse Cinderella Stories. Looking back on this story, I can’t help but smile and smack myself on the head simultaneously. You know what they say: hindsight is a bitch.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I was in the gym late one afternoon. I had just finished my workout and was passing by the stairs, when I saw a guy come up. For a brief moment, our eyes met and he smiled at me. Immediately, a thought popped into my head. For whatever reason, I thought, I am not going to be friends with you or talk to you for that matter. I don’t know if it was my intuition warning me or just me being a bitch. I went over to the bench to gather my stuff and leave. As I was sitting there catching my breathe, I heard a voice ask, “Excuse me, you dropped this.” When I turned, there he was again, the same guy. This time he had my ID in his hand. I had not even realized I had dropped it. Sometimes, looking back I wonder if things would have turned out differently if I hadn’t dropped that card.
“Thank you! I didn’t realize I dropped it,” I said. I gave him a once over. Dark hair, a bit on the shorter side, small eyes, looked a bit older. Just another white guy in my book. Since he looked older, I figured he was either in the law school or med school. My bet was on law school. I noticed that he was wearing a Wake Forest tee shirt so I asked, “Did you go to Wake Forest?” All this information in just about 20 seconds and you wonder why my friends call me the master creeper? Jokingly, of course.
“No, actually I went to Sewanee. It’s up in Tennessee.”
“Oh! One of my friends from high school goes there now.”
“What’s her name?”
“Olivia. I forgot her last name at the moment. It starts with a S. Either way, you wouldn’t forget her if you saw her. She’s like almost 6 feet tall.”
“Yeah . . . nothing comes to mind.”
“So, I’m guessing you go to either the law school or the med school?”
“I’m a first year at the law school.”
We continued to talk. Hell, we even walked out the door together. We stood in the back parking lot talking. Even though it was freezing and I was wearing shorts, the conversation kept me rooted to the spot talking to him, instead of walking back home in the opposite direction. Finally, something hit him.
“Oh wait, I know your friend! Her boyfriend lived with my friend. She’d always be around when I’d go see him.”
The world really can’t be that small, can it?
We parted, went our separate ways. I went back to my place, sat around, and pondered the randomness of it all. I logged onto facebook. Lo and behold, a new friend request. That would be normal, if it weren’t for the fact that I make it my imperative to be on top of facebook privacy settings as soon as they change. My settings were pretty high. You can’t find me unless you’re a friend i.e. typing my full name into facebook doesn’t work. So how then did this stranger, with whom I had no mutual friends, find me? I still have no answer to that question.
Later that night after a quick shower, I was sitting in the University Center with a friend, studying. My accounting class included online homework problems. There were anywhere from 11 to 20 problems. Unfortunately, each question usually came with 20 different parts to it. Luckily, you had an infinite number of tries. That doesn’t help much when you’ve been working on the same two final problems for a good 30 minutes. Frustrated, I decided to take a facebook break. Suddenly, the red facebook notification popped up. It was a message from Wake Forest guy, reading: It was really nice meeting you today. Definitely enjoyed talking with you.
I ask him what he’s up to and vice versa. I tell him about my difficulties with my accounting problem. Guess who took accounting classes his last year of undergrad? How convenient for me! I sent him the problem via facebook and he got different numbers. Seeing as things can get lost in translation on facebook chat, I asked for his number. Note, I was not flirting with him when I asked for it. It was simply a means to an end at the time. I called him and he explained what he did. Getting what I wanted, he only had time to ask how my night was going before I found a way to get off the phone with him. I definitely didn’t want this random guy from the gym getting ideas, but I did leave him a thank you on facebook.
The next day was a Friday, one day away from freedom and just a few hours away from going back home. It was my brother’s confirmation that weekend. We had family and friends showing up for it that Saturday. I sent gym guy a message asking him how he had found me on facebook. I didn’t get the answer I wanted. I refuse to believe it’s simply as easy as typing my first name into facebook, as uncommon as it may be. Meeting him had proved my friend’s theory right, that I don’t bump into normal people. Smart people don’t qualify as normal people according to her and in this case, gym guy was a law student. I told him as much in the message. I’m sure that got a smile out of him. He messaged me back. The conversation went as follows, starting with him and going back and forth:
But normal is boring. I don’t think anyone wants to be normal. Normal is really neutral, meaning there is nothing really that cool or interesting.
I guess strange does lead to some interesting stories
I don’t want to be considered strange however. That just sounds really bad if you call someone strange.
Weird? Quirky? I guess you could just thesaurus a nicer word. 
I would prefer, awesome, legit, possibly even charismatic.
See a normal person in my book would be one of the popular kids, so by definition they would be all those things anyway.
So you assume or believe I am not popular?
I didn’t say that. 
I really need to work on my first impression, definitely not the vibe I want to be giving off.
Personally, I think anyone who becomes friends with me must have a little bit of quirkiness to them. If not for any other reason than like attracts like. 
So we have officially become friends?
Well I guess we would be acquaintances. What else would you call it?
We can be friends.
I’m sooo honored. (hopefully, he can read sarcasm)

      The conversation continued on this chain of light banter, until I realized I was running late for class. I signed off and went about my day. On my way drive home from college, home being my parents’ place, I called a friend of mine who’s good with numbers and statistics. I asked him the probability of meeting a guy in the gym, who went to undergrad with one of my high school friends, lived with her boyfriend, and also just happened have the accounting knowledge I needed. He ball parked a statistic. I wish I could remember it, because the average was pretty small for circumstances. It had the making of a great story.
      The pessimist in me wondered if this story would end as badly as the others. The optimist in me hoped that maybe we stayed friends and remained on good terms and if something more happened, we parted as friends in the end with no ill will on either part. I’m still figuring out which one it was.

To be continued . . .