Afternoon Delight

A trying assignment in the last couple of months had taken its toll on my nerves. I needed a break to recharge my batteries and regain my mental agility. A few weeks in the Himalayas could do the trick, I was tempted to believe. But when I so proposed to my loving wife, I could manage to get an afternoon off sanctioned. So the deal was struck and the only formality left was to decide on the date. Wednesday being the middle of the working week sounded good to both of us. Everything was settled.

Early Wednesday morning I drove my wife to work, trying hard to conceal the more than usual joviality in my general demeanour. After so many years of marriage, I was well aware of the fact that one should not generally go overboard in demonstrating the penchant for solitary afternoons lest one wants to put all possible future occurrences in jeopardy. I chose to play it safe.

The drive back home sans my better half was a noticeably quicker one. Sweet anticipation of what the afternoon all for myself had in store had me breezing through the city traffic with utmost ease. Enroute, an odd motor-cycle made a slight brush along the side of the car carving a minor dent. But I hardly took notice. “Time was precious and time should not be lost in mundane conversation”, was my motto of the day.

I reached home with hardly enough time to take a quick bath and chalk out an agenda for the afternoon. It had to be a memorable afternoon. All possible propositions had to be crammed into the schedule. A movie, a few hours in the bookstore, a bit of idling around appreciating the general greenery, a few mugs of beer if time permits - everything had to feature in the agenda. Life is short and afternoons such as these are usually faster paced - so diligent planning was of utmost essence. With a quick sketch of a tentative plan in mind, I set forth.

Life in the suburbs is usually peaceful and less eventful, but to catch the actions of city life first hand, you need to be at the city centre and to be there, you need to catch a bus (of course, on occassions such as these, you do not want to stress yourself with the driving). This is precisely the first thing that I attempted to do. So far all went as per plan. I could even manage to find myself a seat in the bus which was a bit of a luxury.

At this juncture, with the absence of any monitoring element, I let vent to my inner exuberance. I no longer needed to conceal my blissful state with any hideous regulation imposed by society. Freedom of expression was quickly taking over as the order of the day. Getting slightly carried away, I gave myself the liberty of smiling at about nothing. In the heat of the moment I failed to detect that my blank smile was being unwittingly directed towards a particularly appealing member of the fairer sex that had, in the mean time, firmly positioned itself in the opposite seat. She smiled back. Soon general cognizance regained control. The appealing prospects of the day dissuaded me from getting distracted and I resumed focus on the prime objective of the afternoon at hand. However, the present exchange of nonverbal pleasantries attracted the attention of the ticket collector who had been ignoring me so far. With a disapproving frown on his brow he approached me demanding to inspect my ticket. Although I had so far attached little importance to procuring a ticket and legitimizing the journey, when confronted, I did not allow myself to be counted among those who shy away from responsibility. I promptly eased my right hand in an attempt to procure the wallet.

This is when all hell broke loose. I do not remember whether it is Murphy's law that roughly amounts to state that you do not get something when you need it the most and I do not care if the law is backed by statistically collected samples, what I do remember is that I have never needed a wallet filled with ample currency notes more dearly than at that precise moment. Between the time when I returned home to take the bath and the moment when I took off for the bus, the life changing event which I failed to register was my changing into a fresh pair of trousers with the wallet comfortably nestling in the back pocket of the older pair.

The look on the ticket collector's face said it all. In the evening when I found myself recovering from the cruel game life played on me and the long walk home after facing the humiliation meted out by the ticket collector, the only solace was the possibility of another delightful afternoon if only sometime in the remote future.