bottled fears
I am bad with prepositions.
I always try and eat my on’s, in’s, at’s etc. I do it in quite a convincing manner so that none can suspect the grammar fraud in me and till date, so late in life, I still do a full circle of mmms, ooofs, ugghs when it comes to those silly two lettered life destroyers. Let me try it this time…
I was at Au Bon Pain, happily looking at my platter, which had an Arizona chicken wrap sitting on it, and on the table, by its side laid an odd crumpled receipt. There you go. I made it. The reason why I could make my way through this simple sentence is probably because I want to desperately want to share my American experience with you, without or without any approval of the grammar gurus.
In a nation that has written rules for everything, starting from the railway track to the White House, in a nation that has taxable tags on anything, starting from pet food down to caviar, in a nation that has a time for everything , starting from the kids’ soccer games down to your own 8:00 am desk date, how on earth would ever a Bangali like me fit? Let me take you back to the table where I started…
It was my last day in New York, all rainy, soggy and dirty. Yet, I had to leave the apartment and venture out in the traffic of umbrellas, one battling the other, one cramping the space of the next and deliberately claiming the additional one and a half feet of earth. There was a French girl at home, who was a friend of my daughter’s friend (getting complicated, I know), who had this very plump French girlfriend of his staying with him, who looked at my jeans and happened to comment:
Ahhh Mrs Hook…you are weearing jheans…i weeare pyjhamas whin i traaavel
Somehow I had an odd nagging feeling that I would not be able to take too much of her French accent especially when they were inspired by the American Gossip Girl soap scenes. (I had later learned that that is all she watched throughout the day). So I went out. My greedy stomach was making noises, prodding me to have the wrap along with 500 grams of Perrier.
This is where Au Bon Pain comes in to my blot (blog+plot). After receiving my order, the cashier gave me the receipt which I habitually, instantly trash. It was at that point I remembered that I had not taken my bottle to the counter. Apparently they have these strange bar code systems in America where everything has to be scanned, matched and passed. This 2 dollar water bottle had missed making the cash counter connection and all because of me! By the time I realized my mistake, a huge queue of doctors, senior citizens, students, etc had built up. There was no way for me to push through the crowd and resort to confession. The only thing that I could do was to settle down with my tray and the bottle and quietly place the receipt beside the tray. That’s what I did and yet the worst was yet to come.
Let me tell you, I am absolutely averse to alarms and screaming exits. Therefore, if there were any chances of the door talking while I would be on my way out of my favourite eatery, I would rather hide under the table and wait for everyone to disappear and then finally make it to the cashier with the crushed receipt and apologize for sitting on it for hours.
The moment of truth arrived after 20 minutes. It was time for me to leave. While I quietly made my way to the exit door, I waited for an elderly woman to go in first and then I stepped in to the last invisible check point.
Suddenly silence had become my dearest ally.
Suddenly I was only listening to the pitter-patter and suddenly the door showed no signs of anger and suddenly I felt free.
And all this while, little did I realize that I had finished drinking my sparkling water with my meal and there was no evidence to nail me with…
Oh America! Thou art the emblem of systemic boredom and fear.
I would never live in you.
