Day 19

Two days away from Day 21, by which time daily-blogging will become a habit - like brushing teeth (though I've been doing that for over 21 years, so it's not quite fair to compare brushing with blogging; even though both start with "B")

Today has been a little-less-boring day. I went shopping for Ma's gift (Read: walked into a store and walked out with two gifts -- one for her; one for me). I re-joined the library I used to go to as a kid. Now I can once again return to reading pulp fiction. At Rs. 30 per book per week, it's quite a good deal. Plus, I generally read fast. And when I know that slow-reading will be costlier, I read faster. Money always talks :D Have brought home John Grisham's The Appeal, which my Boss has been praising for a while now. Btw... have written a post on Eden on the office website. Please go read it and comment. :P

Now to get on with the account of today:

To begin with, I woke up quite late which made me crabbity early in the morning. I don't like having to rush. But slow and steady, even if it wins you the race eventually, doesn't ensure that you reach office on time. However, I managed to find a speedier auto and emptier roads than usual and reached office only 15 minutes late. And since I'm usually the first one in, it hardly matters how late I am anyway.

But the exciting bit happened this afternoon. A little background here: My paternal grandfather was a Bengali from Bihar. As a result, I have inherited some khotta tendencies (no offence meant to anybody), like putting both legs up on any chair I find. This includes dining table chairs and computer chairs, even if it's a struggle to have my legs fit there.

Anyway, so I was happily strumming on the keyboard with my feet up on the green chair that creaks like the door of a haunted house. I happened to look down to see if my shoes were still there (I am paranoid about my things getting robbed from right under my nose), when I see this grey bit of paper that looks like a lizard. Look a little closer, ask colleague to take a look, and the verdict: it's not a bit of paper disguised as a lizard; it's a lizard.

A prod at the lizard from colleague, and lizard moves. I squeal and rush off in a bid to maintain safe distance. Whole office gets together to chase lizard out away from my CPU. Boss wonders in amusement: Why does the whole office have to be involved in chasing a silly lizard?

But ah! Seated on the other side of the room, how would he know that this is no regular lizard. This is a tree lizard that lifts its head like a snake and hops-skips-and-jumps rather than walk like our civilized house lizards. It is better-looking though, this lizard that temporarily ousted me from my desk and motivated me to keep my feet up on the safety of the chair for the remainder of the afternoon.

Of course, the colleague that looks like and eats like Jughead Jones (minus the hat) managed to collect Lizzy dear on a newspaper and deposit him outside, but the colleague who brings biscuits every morning said that Lizzy was deposited in such a place that made it easier for him to return to the warmth of my CPU. This means more squeals and office disruptions are likely in the near future.

Later this evening though a scorpion emerged from the pot in the bathroom. I had seen him a few days ago and flushed him down. But this water-lover survived the waterfall and came back up today. But by doing this, he also sounded his death knell, for he was crushed into two and flushed down again.

A lizard, a scorpion, and a mad man the other day -- is the universe trying to tell me something??