Kaphi With Karan

Here I am today, typing with my new VAIO TX: VPFNGCHHHHTQWER-TXXX5280021GPPRSAIDS/VVXZOO. My wife and I have agreed that I will be unavailable* in the bedroom for a few days.

Like all women, my wife is a sucker for sales. She will simply buy stuff because they are available for less. Very recently, she bought, this is true, fourteen towels at TH** because they had a 0.007451% discount on them. We have enough cutleries to supply for marriage parties.

Anyways, a few days ago, I made the mistake of going to Barista*** for a bite and a cup of coffee. I really shouldn't have.

• The place didn't have any place to stand or sit. Where ever I looked, I saw kids and more kids, sitting down with their mates and this is true, working on school projects and home work.
• My wife and I managed to get to the counter passing a whole bunch of juvenile delinquents only to find a number of caffeine junkies****.
• My wife asked me to find us a table, while she settles the bill. I am inherently a peace-loving person unlike my wife*5. While I was waiting for a couple to vacate the table, Mr. Pappaji*6, Mrs. Pappiji and Master. Pappu barged across the room and occupied the table.
• My wife was wild*7 at me and followed it up by mouthing off a few indecipherable obscenities in her mother tongue in the general direction of the Iyengar's family.
• While we waited endlessly for some kids to finish their science projects, not very far away from where I was standing, a family was ready to leave. I moved over and stood behind the couch, waiting to plonk the shopping bags on the couch in order to mark my territory. (not on the family but that wouldn't have made a difference)
• No sooner did they leave the couch, another woman*8 came running to occupy the couch.
• After sitting down in the couch sans baby Jumbo, we waited long*9 enough for our stuff to arrive. Before our food could arrive, another couple*10 with a kid in tow arrived. They dragged two chairs from different tables and sat at our coffee table.
• The couple munched on croissants, oranais and french brioches, this is true, with a fork and knife, while their child was tottering perilously close to me, trying to grab my food and coffee. His parents were completely oblivious to this oafishness.
• Everything was going on okay until the guy, in an attempt to satiate his sweet tooth, ordered a Kugelhopf*11.

We walked out of Barista, telling ourselves never to walk in again.

Yours kaphilly.

* I want to experience the joy of a new laptop solitarily. She smirked, Ha! Like your presence is going to make any difference.

** A brand called Tommy Hilfiger. Originally from Hoshiarpur. Known to experiment with different shades of yellow.

*** Meaning bartender. The place does not serve alcohol or coffee.

**** It is absolutely easy to spot a caffeine junkie. He usually has a cup of coffee in his hand. They wear khadi kurtas, many beads around their necks and wrists and often read The Hindu Business Line or Kierkegaard's Either/Or.

*5 She played the role of Child Catcher in the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

*6 I only know their names because; they were all wearing the aforementioned name badges. Apparently, they moved here from down south and, this is true, changed their names for acceptance.

*7 Angry.

*8 The woman must have been in her mid-forties. Accompanying her were three older and very large women + a baby elephant. I gently informed her that I was hiding behind the couch for atleast thirty-seven minutes now and I should rightfully be the next occupant of the couch. While both of us were engaged in a momentary blitzkrieg firing sugar cubes at each other, one of the very large women ordered baby Jumbo to occupy the couch. This act of acute preposterousness necessitated the coffee shop manager to make an appearance. While the manager and the woman argued, I occupied the couch with baby Jumbo sitting right beside me.

I said, "Can you please have your child removed from the couch?"
She said, "Why? She is only a child and you don't need the entire couch."
I said, "I am also accompanied by my wife, who is right now paying the bill."
She said, "Ha! Who would have wanted to married you?"

At the point, my wife made an appearance.

She said (wife), "I did."

Wanting to have the last laugh, I ended the proceedings with, "Ha-ha, only if your daughter had a different face and was thinner...".

*9 The frame of reference of time that we spent waiting for our food to arrive was, the number of Presidents of America between Ulysses Grant and Herbert Hoover.

*10 The family consisted of a guy, a pregnant woman and a just born child. The guy sat at OUR table and dragged the coffee table closer to him, thereby, bereaving us of our food. At this point, my wife reminded him that we were already at the table and called him, "A Slubberdegullion." I am not sure what it means. Neither did he know.

*11 He did this by merely asking for a menu card and pointing it out to the aforementioned item. I am not certain if he knew it was made of rat's offal pieces. OK, I am just kidding.