Last week, after my birthday, I walked into my first Zumba class of this season to find out that I shared my birthday with my instructor's husband. She had brought in some cake that she had baked earlier that week and since I was the last one to leave the class, she picked up a wee container and filled it with a few slices of the cake for me to take home.
Priyanka was a bit sad that we hadn't cut a cake on my birthday despite the fact that she wouldn't be able to have any since she was a vegan. We did consider cutting one and letting her watch from a distance but she didn't look like the kind of person who suffered as a vegan so we knew it would be a wasted effort. We couldn't fathom what other joy some cake could bring into our lives, if not for the satisfaction of seeing someone suffer. As you can imagine, I never cared for cakes too much and it was only when she brought it up that I actually thought about it.
So did I get a bonus birthday cake, one that was baked specifically for a person born on the 16th of October, while I was on a mission to get back into shape after a holiday and a birthday celebration where I did little but eat all the best food in the world?
OH YES, I DID.
I almost want to say that I skipped back home - and I would have, had it not been for all the sore muscles in my body - for that was the amount of joy I was feeling in my heart. I was starting to think that I might care for cakes after all.
All that joy almost dissipated the second I opened the door to my apartment and noticed two fully grown men sitting on my couch eating crisps and balancing beer bottles on their beer bellies while playing video games. It was one of those days when The Bromance had taken over my couch, my husband, my T.V, my snacks and basically my whole life.
I realised that I would have to share my cake with them if I wanted to have some myself. And there was no way I could wait till I wore them out because I was the one who usually fell asleep first. Luckily for me, the minute I reluctantly offered the cake container to them, Shane scrunched up his nose and professed that he never had much of a sweet tooth anyway and The Bromance expressed his dislike for that particular flavor of cake. It was all mine and in that one evening, I gained at least thrice the amount of calories I may have burned during that session.
When we were packing our bags to return from India earlier this month, our families went a little cray-cray and stuffed our luggage full of food and snacks. One of the things that I personally picked out for myself was my favourite Haldiram's Soan Papdi, which, for anyone who doesn't know is basically the Indian version of cotton candy with a few extra additions like almonds, pistachios, and cardamom. I have loved this sweet from the time I can remember and it's a shame that it's quite hard to come by here in the UK.
I asked Shane in the store back in India if he wanted a packet for himself too and with the same superior air of "I never had a sweet tooth anyway", he dismissed my queries.
So right before this week's Zumba class, I filled up my instructor's cake container with half of my stash of Soan Papdi and set the other half aside to nibble on till I got my hands on some reinforcements. Needless to say, everyone at the class enjoyed the snack and I returned home beaming. I was beaming while we were getting dinner ready. I was beaming while we were having said dinner. I was beaming while I offered Shane some Soan Papdi from my stash and he reluctantly agreed to try it. I was beaming as I nibbled on that tiny piece I chose for myself. I was beaming when less than a minute later, trying to decide if I should award myself a little extra Soan Papdi that evening, I laid my eyes on my stash.
You know where this story is going.
I had to spend the next five minutes trying to remind myself that there was no way I would be able to take him down in a fight. He was just too big an opponent and despite how much I've been working out and he's been sitting on his ass drinking beer, I would never be able to take him down in a fight.
And then, I spent another ten minutes trying to remind myself that I did, in fact, love him at some point in my life. That killing him in his sleep was not an option.
As you can imagine, that container with my final stash of Soan Papdi was completely empty in that short span of time. There was not even a tiny flake left for me to consume.
So after I was done reminding myself of various facts, I turned to him, biting back my tears and said, "You don't live with your brother anymore. There's no competition for food in this house. You don't have to finish everything first and you never have to inhale your food in. No one is stealing from your plate."
By the time I got to - Have you seen me? I'm a tiny little person. I'm a slow and picky eater who doesn't share a plate of starters with you anymore because, by the time I'm done eating one chicken wing, you would have destroyed the entire plate - the tears I had been biting back started falling from my eyes and he started transforming from Shane Girish to Shane Guilty-ish.
Now, Shane never really says sorry but he's always quick to apologize in some way or the other. However, the worst form of his apology comes when he's kind of genuinely guilty about something he did - when he's guilty-ish. And Shane Guilty-ish is the most annoying human being you will ever encounter.
Things Shane Guilty-ish will do to you:
- Pretend as if he can't understand what the actual issue is.
- Suffocate you in a hug while you're trying to make a point about how he sucketh.
- Smother you with kisses as you try to rebuke him for the hugs.
- Insist upon helping you out with chores he absolutely hates (like loading the dishwasher) and as a result, make more of a mess for you to clean up (need I repeat the fact that he never loads the dishwasher the right way?).
- Smother you with kisses again as you try to clean up his mess and re-load the dishwasher.
Shane Guilty-ish always ends up making me even more annoyed and frustrated with him than I was before his transformation.
So on this particular evening, as he was trying to smother me with even more kisses while I stood there re-loading the dishwasher, I turned to him and told him frankly that he was actually annoying me, that if he really wanted to help, he might as well just take the trash out. By that point, the effect of his former transformation was wearing off and a sort of counter-transformation was taking place. I guess he was going back to being simply annoying as opposed to being super-annoying.
So as soon as he heard my words, his eyes lit up and he repeated what I said to him.
"You're saying you want me to take out the trash?"
And before I knew it, he was trying to pick me up and carry me to the door, determined to throw out the trash from our home.
I wasn't surprised, to be honest. This joke was getting a little too old as well, as he'd attempted to pick me up and throw me out of the house a bunch of times in the past. But I guess I would make a stronger point of finding it lame if I could just stop myself from giving in to laughter every time he did it.
So going with the theme of demonstrating that my life is a joke, here's one more incident to add to the library.
Have a happy weekend everyone! And when you come back, I'll be right here, trying to not get picked up and thrown out of my own house as trash.