Simple Pleasures

I recently moved to a new apartment. The more intelligent among you wince, envisioning the mind numbingly painful torture. The less intelligent will send me a congratulatory email. After signing my papers, the leasing office requested a small write up on my moving experience. The one paragraph I submitted contained the following words: broken, forgotten, ignored, cracked, chipped, dented, dinged, stained, damaged, torn, ripped, bleeding, scratched and smashed! Strangely, the leasing office has stopped requesting these testimonials!

It has been suggested that enduring the rigors of transplanting yourself from one location to another, without loss of life, limb, sanity or property (or what’s left of it after paying the security deposit), is a rite of passage. The successful completion of this prevents Nature from blackballing you out of the genetic pool! The moving experience involved hundreds of boxes, thousands of plastic packets and myself, intertwined in one of natures most beautiful yet poignant struggles. Defying all logic I had managed to pack my socks with the leftover food from the fridge, my shoes with my dinner plates and even a dead cockroach that had taken refuge among my clothes in its final moments (Sometimes I wonder if it was the smell from my dirty laundry that killed it, in which case I have found the ultimate excuse for leaving my sweaty clothes lying around the house. Cockroach repellent!)

Settling into the new house was a very unsettling experience. To add to my woes, the weather in my city could be as random as the costume change in a bollywood film song. Late in the night, just as I was moving hundreds of boxes from the car to my new home, a fat raindrop committed hara-kiri on my head, forcing me to ask myself this brilliant question: Which one of these boxes was the umbrella in? This question was soon redundant following the thorough drenching from a midnight storm. Dripping wet, the next question popped up in my head: Which one of these boxes was the dry underwear in? Mumbling and cursing my bad luck I wondered if it really had been that bad in my previous apartment? Was the ice-cold water flowing from the hot water tap that bad? Was the smell of stale dog urine from my balcony actually affecting my social life? Who could say that the mould growing in the bathroom gave me the allergic reaction that landed me in hospital? Was it realistic to expect the maintenance guy to repair the fire alarm in my apartment in just three months? After all, a fire hazard in a wooden building is so negligible!

Preoccupied as I was with all these thoughts, my mind was jolted back to reality by the more immediate need to relieve myself. Nature’s call had grown more insistent over the past hour and the cool breeze blowing over my wet clothes had only added to her appeal. I tried to find the keys to the new house but the urgency building up had slowed time down to a crawl. Papers, packets and clothes blurred in front of my eyes finding their way quickly to the pavement. The bushes around the house started to look more and more appealing. There! Found it! I grab the keys and rush to the front door. I fumble with them for a while, not knowing which one to use. I insert one in and turn the lock. It opens! Throwing the door open I skid and stumble to the toilet. I slam the seat up and let go. A sensation of pure pleasure rushes through my body in a warm gush, prickling the hair on the back of my neck. The smile returns to my face. The whole world looks rosy. Flushing the toilet I walk out. The wet underwear was forgotten and my regrets were no longer relevant. The glow on my face and the light spring in my step suggesting a lesson well learnt. Nothing beats the simple pleasures in life!