Myth: You can plan to have a peaceful day and have it.

I used to believe taking a day off from work in the middle of the week would be a blessing; a day where I do not feel like working, where I have nothing to do and all day to do it, where I can put my feet up and relax and engross self with a book. Or just sleep, daylong, all day long!

Mind you I’m not talking about the weekends here; or the national/bank holidays where there is the forever pestering better one by two announcing the state of his forever peculiarly large belly every half an hour and saying – “Hmm… I’m strangely very hungry… suddenly! Aren’t you!?” to which I’d always want to bring myself up to and say – “No Honey! We just had our breakfast/brunch/lunch/snack/dinner like 10 minutes ago AND unlike you! I do not have a wolf in my belly” or “Would you like to have to tea?” (I always fall for this one!) To which I’d merrily answer “Ooooh I’d love to!” to which he’d cleverly say “why don’t you go make some for both of us then!” (Such a Prick I tell you!)

He’d then open the fridge and stand in front of it till you can see a thin layer of frost forming on his nose and grandly announce – “There’s nothing to eat”

Anyway, so this time when I made up the forever successful excuse of killing poor old granny again (god rest her soul) and decided to stay back. Little did I know I would discover so much about my neighbours, their kids, the fancy, noisy appliances they own –

Previous day – Ask the maid to NOT come early (7.00 in the morning to which of course she denies) give her also a day off (to which she could never deny)

The D day –

5.45 a.m. – better one by two’s alarm goes off. He has to get up at 6.15 but he likes to set it up at half an hour early and it snoozes every 15 minutes and he’d smack it shut and yell “Aa-haa! I still have half an hour to sleep… 15 minutes to sleep” and goes back to sleep

6.30 a.m. – better one by two acknowledges his bathroom-singing-skills

6.32 a.m. – yells – “There’s no towel here! Could you please get me my towel…? I’m getting late!”

Please try to remember all this while – I’m on my day-off and have promised myself I’ll sleep! All day long!

7.05 a.m. – leaves finally!

7.07 a.m. – Calls me! “My cab driver left me and went off… I’m taking a bus”!

Again – I promised myself I’ll sleep daylong!

8.00 a.m. – the 4 year old child next door is in disagreement with his mother about the bathing arrangements. He is very vocal and articulate about it in his getting-louder-by-minute shrieks and cries. Mommy dear is equally stubborn and would not give in; instead shrieks louder to ask him to listen to her! (All I could make out of all the heated conversation along with the piercing noise was – mommy will smack! She will smack!)

8.15 a.m. – Peace! All of a sudden!

8.17 a.m. – doorbell rings (the full tune of “chalti hai kya nau se baara” plays) Drag self from bed to find the doorman has decided upon this day out of all the days to clean the car.

8.20 a.m. - all sorts of mixers, grinders blasting off all over… all of a sudden, feels like I’m in the middle of a battlefield involving all kinds of milling machinery of the modern day!

9.00 a.m. – better one by two calls on cell to see what I’m upto!

9.05-10.30-11.00 – street hawkers selling every kind of vegetable possible, in all kinds of tunes, yelling at all possible decibel levels; each stopping for at least 5 minutes under the apartment building trying to lure customers into buying whatever it is that they are selling. I could also make out a few feminine voices haggling over the price of whatever it was that they were trying to buy.

All this while I tried to remind myself this was supposed to be the day I was going to sleep!

11.05 a.m. – the landline phone rings! Considerate customer care people calling to check if we have any complains with our connection

11.15 a.m. - better one by two wants to know some code on some device he wants me to look for!

That was it!

The whole world has been conspiring against me.

Get dressed, reach office and realise it’s way too calmer here and I can always sleep with my eyes open… staring intently at the computer screen.