Husband's aha moment with 2 ladies... on the drive

It is decision-making time at home. In fact, it has been so for the last over 6 months. The bigger the decision, the longer the time taken. Typical Libra the man of the house is at that.

Every time he weighs the pros and cons and goes over them again and again and again until our girl rolls her eyes and walks off leaving me to play the supporting wife, I'm reminded of my childhood, when my mother grabbed that extra tomato from the vendor-woman's cane basket, saying with finality, "This needs to be here.. Why can't you hold your balance straight...and these stones you call weights... you think I can't see..." These sentences were the staple of my mom until she grabbed more veggies off her basket. I don't know who was smarter. My mom or the old Rajamma, who chewed paan and always gave in to my mom. After the sale, she put the coins into her greasy pouch and tucked it over the petticoat string inside her shrivelled tummy folds, gargled her mouth, and settled down for the hot glass of sweetened tea, while she regaled my mom with the gossip of the week.

Courtesy: Morguefile

Well, in our latest case at home, I have nothing to be regaled about as the merchandise on the scale is a car. Given my unparalleled knowledge of vehicles, I play the de facto conduit. And so it has been...the husband has been car shopping...err..r car studying for several months now. We have visited a dozen showrooms and have gone on test drives, too.

"Will we get the new car at least by my birthday, Papu?," asked our girl the other day, at the dinner table.

"That's what we need to decide if it's...."

"Oh! Papa,.."

And he steps on the accelerator...no left, no right, no brakes...from the length of this car and that, to the engine of this and that, the make, the pull, the drive, the resale value, the insurance, cost of parts... Had I memorised the points that he compares, I would have been hired hands-down by any auto dealer in town by now.

The girl desperately said, "Papu, please let's just buy one. How much will you see now!"

Sensing her lose cool, I stepped in. "Okay, so you have zeroed in on Infiniti or Pilot, yea?"

"That's the confusion now," he replied honestly.

So I decided to call upon my inherited finality and said, "Okay, Infiniti it is. That sales guy was so sweet."

"Exactly Mama, wasn't he so nice," my girl exclaimed. "How he introduced himself, shook hands with us, always smiling and talking. Let’s buy that car, Papu."

The husband, lost for words, stammered, "It's a CAR we're buying."

"Yea, so?" she threw in, in her customary style.

"That Pilot guy was so...,

"Rude", my girl completed for me.

"Yea. Like a tour guide he took us round and round the car yapping stats..."

"That's his job. And that's exactly why we went there, to get the details," defended the husband.

"So, what was I? Your secretary walking behind you? The least he could have done was at least acknowledge my presence..."

"Yes, Papu, the other person was so nice. Let's buy that..."

Dumb-struck, he had his head shift from left to right, looking at the two of us on his either side until he finally broke into a what-will-I-do-with-the-two-of-you smile!

A selfie for the album

An aha moment for the Libran when he found a balance – with his two lady loves!