Everything Is Awesome ( Except My Life )

  ' Honey! The last of the boxes are packed, we're ready to go!! What the hell are you doing in front of the old dresser which we are about to sell off?', I asked my wife. My parents were still in the stage of a minor shock of my marrying a woman from the South of India but I put their minor arguments off by convincing them that I loved her truly and I do!! 

I loved her for many of the aspects which are lacking nowadays in the American ladies of today. Her sense of living in a joint family, cleanliness, helping me out when we worked at the same firm, her funny accent, her sharpness of catching others' errors, all these contributed to my love for her. We were freshly wedded, married just a month ago and now we were gonna shift to our brand new apartment near the Panama City Beach town.

As I told you before South Indian women are women of utmost cleanliness so you would have to be patient and do your other work in leisure while she gets ready. ( Take it from me, they are bound to get you late.)

‘ Coming-a darling-a!!’ My wife shouted back from my parents’ house. Another thing I forgot to mention about her is that she often adds “a” as in umbrella at the end of words.

She came out wearing classic black shades and carrying a chic black leather handbag in a very lucid manner, as a south Indian woman's rule she shunned all modern clothing which American ladies usually like to wear, but as for her, she would wear starched sarees (Indian) of silk or cotton and walk in a very respectable manner. People used to say that I looked like a typical nerd trailing behind the anchal (Indian) of her saree, but I simply ignored them and went gaga over her. I loved her, she loved me and that was all I ever needed. Even now looking back at my memories ( this one particularly) I just see sweet ones with my wife. 

The way she carried herself and sat in the car left me stunned. 'Where-a the hell-a did-a you go?? We are-a getting-a very late-a!!'

I thought to myself," Look who's talking."

I quickly walked towards my car as we had to meet up with the real estate agent, who was going to help us choose an apartment, our first dream home.

We started our journey with a truck trailing behind us with all our things and as for our food during journies, we were to strictly adhere to south Indian diet of breakfast, lunch, and dinners that consist of the spicy sambar, the cool and hot coconut and peanut chutneys, crunchy and crisp-white dosas, soft idlis and uttapams and many delicious and sophisticated foods to come.

The real estate agent was lounging in a roadside restaurant adorning a crisp white shirt on his obese and flabby body and his two small stocky legs sticking out of his Bermuda shorts like a pair of stiff wooden sticks. 

He was glued on to his smartphone and had connected it with huge headphones so that no one in the whole wide world would disturb or distract him. It took me 15 whole minutes, waving and shouting his name, only to grab his attention.

'Ah!' He said. 'Bonjour Monsieur, mademoiselle! Monsieur would you care to go Dutch and buy me a ham sandwich ?'

For a moment I stood stupefied staring at the smiling chubby face of the real estate agent, keeping in my mind that real estate agents needed to be taken care of before they take care of us. My wife came out of the car with dreamy sort of look, which would make any man fall for her, and told,'Give-a the man a sandwich and and-a an extra for-a a tie.'

I looked at my brown cash purse sadly and sighed discontentedly and ordered a sandwich.

On the topic of our apartments, he just shoved a big i-pod towards us where all sites available could be viewed. 

'It is chanceux ( French), monsieur, that some apartments are still disponible ( French) because generament (French) newlyweds at this time newlyweds come to Le( French) Panama City Beach town to take in the sights and scenic beaute (French).'

When I wrote the cheque and gave it to this immensely fat man, he clasped the cheque like a little child getting a new toy. When he motioned me to pay the whole bill I started to think whether he conceded the meanings of his statements because I clearly remember that he told me to go dutch which usually means to pay together.

' Don't go cheap on me Monsieur.' He said as a matter of factly while he sat there still clasping his cheque and munching on the reminisces of his ham sandwich.

He gave us the full itinerary to our apartment on a foldable paper map and left us in the middle of nowhere. My wife regained her composure and said irritably,' What-a are-a we waiting-a for?'

And I, desperate to do anything to win her heart, motioned her towards our black Sudan car as if to welcome a member of royal lineage.

We reached our apartment almost around midnight, my wife had already gone to snooze mode. I gave her a small peck on the cheek and woke her up.

One by one we carried all our boxes, suitcases, belongings, and other items of our luggage. It was a ready-to-shift apartment so we didn't have to pack any massive furniture or mattresses and quickly freshened up, had one of those microwave dinners, and went to sleep like logs in our master bedroom. 

I was just beginning to get a little drowsy when I was suddenly nudged and jerked by my wife as she was saying,' Wake-a up-a you've been sleeping-a for hours-a.'

When I lifted my head towards the alarm clock I could see it was 4:00 AM. My wife had already switched on all lights present in the house and made a quick tour of it. 

As I was groping for the glass of water my wife had kept there on the bedside table for me, she had already taken her bath, washed her soiled sarees, made yet another of her scrumptious South Indian breakfasts, and also was now pinning down her newly starched white saree on her blouse.

She quickly did her morning puja and put one of those sickly smelling incense sticks on the incense stick stand. One of the other things I admired her for, was her energy. She had a lovely nimble and swift way of doing almost every job she was assigned to which I could never attain.

The first day of a new beginning went worse for me from the start, no matter how many pujas she offered for me. First, off we went to St. Andrew's Park, (which was famous for its scenic beauty of the beach of course with big jagged boulders were couples would sit together and also awesome for sighting coyotes, alligators, snowy plovers, gopher tortoises, etc) where some insanely stupid geek with a beatnik kind of look( who turned out to be one of my wife's friends) spilled a whole glass of orange juice on to my new t-shirt for no reason at all!

The second thing occurred when we were going to some Shipwreck Island Waterpark some other geek ( who horrifyingly also turned out to be one of my wife's friends) came cruising on a motorboat towards the beach almost near me giving me a fine sprinkling of water on me with a dressing of some disgusting looking slimy seaweed.

My wife took pity on me and thought that life was unfair to me, and called her family astrologer to check if I had committed any sin in my previous life. The astrologer, while listening to my story nearly got stitches in his mouth of laughing and when my wife's narration ended he turned grave and said,' Well.....Deal with it with a positive attitude and embrace it before it embraces you!

Now seriously, what do you make of that!