Hysteria

For me, Sundays are usually days when I enjoy sleeping for an extra hour or two (and sometimes even stay asleep till twelve in the afternoon). However, this Sunday, I had certain appointments to keep. I was to attend my first official “blog meet” and this happy-but-scary-nevertheless event required me to wake up early so that I could maintain my status as a ‘punctual person’.

My first great achievement of the day was reaching the venue all by myself by a route I am not accustomed to, without getting lost. And I reached fifteen minutes early owing to the benevolence of the usually unkind traffic. And so, I waited … and kept watch, my glance alternating between the partially visible sky speckled with pretty clouds and the sparsely populated road with unfamiliar faces huddled at one corner.

After several minutes of muttering “The clouds have shifted” to myself and also dismissing potential Lucifers who walked by as “Too old”, “Too young”, “Nah, can’t be… too short” and one particularly professional looking middle-aged person in a teal shirt who kept looking behind to find my eyes following his every move (out of curiosity, of course) as “Too paranoid”, I could see the Cheshire-Cat-who-is-also-a-crazy-tree-frog, (C.C.w.i.a.a.c.t.f. or “Kitty” for short), ambling along amiably towards the spot where I was standing.

We waved at each other in recognition and the moment Kitty was within speaking distance, I spotted the CD he had promised to bring along and made a rude and rather impatient grabbing motion, snatching it out of his hands before he could utter a word. (Yes, I know, my social skills are severely limited). And I cannot remember whether I said thank you. (My mother really should have spanked me more as a child, to ensure that I have at least some semblance of politeness).

While waiting for Lucifer (who was running late) to turn up, Kitty and I spoke of random snigger-inducing subjects that had us breaking into fits of lunatic-like-laughter at regular intervals. I mentioned the sad news that my friend, the Steely Bunny would not be able to attend the meet while Kitty suggested that we raid the meet venue while it was still closed (an offer, which I declined, by the way). Then, all of a sudden, a tallish person popped up behind Kitty, who, for some unfathomable reason started guffawing in a manner that would defeat Goofy by a landslide in a guffaw-like-a-dead-decapitated-chicken-that-has-been-brought-to-life-by-Dark-Magic competition. It so turned out that Kitty was er, laughing at Lucifer (who can actually earn a fortune advertising for VLCC if that picture he e-mailed me was actually his) as the latter had hacked off his moustache since the last time they had met.

The three of us then proceeded to a coffee shop, the haunt of most brand-influenced materialistic teenagers, around the corner to have ‘breakfast’. While walking, Lucifer contradicted Kitty and let me know that I was not short. Yayness! Thank you! Did I mention that he also got me a chocolate as a belated birthday present? Yumness! At the coffee shop, we seated ourselves right next to the food display (I devoured the chocolate delicacies with my eyes till our Chocolate Fantasies arrived) and further demonstrated my non-existent social skills by draining glass after glass of water, exasperating the waiters, startling Lucifer, who was silently keeping count of the number of glasses I had consumed, and giving Kitty more reasons to call me a ‘mortal aquatic creature’. By the time we made our way back to the meet-venue, I think there were nine empty cups adorning the table for three, out of which I had consumed the contents of seven. While walking back, Kitty managed to snigger at Lucifer’s face, carry on endless conversation and untie his shoelaces without touching them, all at once.

At our destination, we climbed up to the first floor and sniffed around the sci-fi section for quite some time. Kitty pounced and drooled delightedly over Tolkien, an ultra-hot black and silver Waterman fountain pen (which I drooled over as well) and kept on talking. Lucifer silently observed all the inane behaviour taking place around him with a Zen-like air and the occasional gleam in his eyes. I was selectively deaf whenever (a) Kitty froze in fear after unconsciously slipping in an expletive, lest he be quoted by me and lose his reputation, (b) jokes were cracked about how er, young I looked and (c) when the picture of me in pigtails (taken a few days ago by the classmates who molested my hair into the aforementioned form) happened to be shown to the two (*ahem*) humans accompanying me. At that last, they turned purple trying not to laugh and then gave in to the need to breathe and burst out laughing. I really don’t blame them. I would’ve done the same had it been someone else. The comic nature of that picture is very tragic indeed. Therefore, I looked away as they turned blue in the face, guffawing away to glory.

Kitty also made the mistake of assuming that “height is everything” when he went and enquired whether Venus In Furs was available. His question was answered by an “Oh really? Can you tell me what it is about?” from the manager. Lucifer and I nearly died chuckling quietly as we watched him get embarrassed and return with a miffed expression. We replied in the negative when he asked us whether he looked eighteen. Oh yes, Kitty looked very displeased. (*Insert sick sadistic smirk here*).

At the music and movies section, we forced Kitty to confess his profound adoration for pink covered Disney Princess movies, Mary Poppins and later during the day, Janet Jackson. Lucifer and I also shook hooves with Kitty’s imaginary pink Unicorn friend, who did not speak much, but was glad to make our acquaintance, possibly glad at having people other than Kitty to interact with. Other note-worthy incidents that took place include our valiant attempt to protest against having sounds made by a constipated anaemic gargoyle (alias Enrique) thrust down our auditory canals — this involved the three of us sitting down on the rug for a while before being told, “Excuse me, but this is not the place to sit” by one of the shop assistants. Lucifer began the game of intimidating a scruffy-looking, bespectacled twelve-year-old boy by peering intently at him over (not through, mind you) Kitty’s glasses. He and Kitty took turns at this and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. I demonstrated the “Jerry mouse laugh”, much to the amusement of my companions and also enacted what occurred after I had accidentally let it slip louder than I had intended, during a class in college. Oh, and I also punched Kitty for being annoying. (Thanks to my hard knuckles, I can punch quite well without much of an effort).

Dark Chocolate called up after her meeting ended and we decided to go out and get some mineral water (since I was thirsty again) while waiting for her to arrive. By the time I had passed more water down my perpetually parched throat, Dark Chocolate arrived, smiled and waved at everyone. Once inside once again, we decided to order some food. Dark Chocolate meowed, made funny faces that would give Puss in Boots a run for his money, and showed us some incredibly cute pictures and videos of some kittens. We also discussed amoebae that performed callisthenics inside people’s brains, the joy of threatening to set E. coli and Bacillus subtillis on people, the exact mechanism by which a cat would die a gruesome death (with its four paws in the air, lying helpless on the road) when encountering a particularly difficult calculus problem set in competitive examinations and the odd coincidence of having dancers in muted music videos move in harmony with a completely unrelated and equally irksome song, (usually of a different language), playing loudly in the background.

Lucifer left soon after lunch. Dark Chocolate called up her boyfriend to have him meow at us. (She had boasted of his meowing skills. Hence, well, you know). Kitty and I made revolted pukey-faces at the mushy talk that soon followed between the two meow-ers. And the three of us decided to walk to the multiplex nearby for something to drink. At the multiplex, I bumped into one of my college-buddies, and was introduced to her mum and sister, who were both very sweet and gracious. At the food court we all got a kick out of behaving immaturely — we made squeaky-sounds by speedily sliding our fingers across some glossy paper, shredded the paper into tiny strips and stuffed these inside the plastic soft-drink glass. Kitty and I then raced down an up escalator. I won. (Whee-ness!) Kitty got ticked off by a security guard. (Boo-ness!) Dark Chocolate breezed down the normal flight of stairs and purred like a content cat. (“…”-ness). We left the multiplex and were guided towards the Metro station by Dark Chocolate. Discussion pertaining to the joys of listening to Lacuna Coil and head-banging to one’s heart’s content ensured that we were not bored while waiting for the train. I got off before the others, waved and walked off to board another transportation vehicle which would take me home.

I’m certain that I have successfully conveyed the full extent of my inane, puerile and well, dim-witted demeanour to all those who met me. I was exhausted when I reached home. And Ship’s battery decided to cold-war me some minutes into the conversation. However, I do well with a lot of laughing gas in my system. And I did laugh today … quite a bit. Very amusing, the day was. A good time, I had. Stop speaking like Yoda, I should. So, well, YAYNESS! XD