Tuesday, April 1, 2008

of relieved waitress, white linen, mud and dogs.


if you were to draw the line between a relieved waitress, white linen, dogs and mud, you might bet 100 bucks that it has to be a polynomial fit; if i told you it can be a simple straight line, you would look at me with those quizzical eyes one of which is blue, the other turquoise, (albeit i can't distinguish between blue and turquoise and only refer to those like i just did as it makes you sound like a cat looking at the sun and gives me the shivers.) would think through your bet and finally would go with it. (because although you trust me, this all sounds too preposterous!)

but on a sunny morning day, which nevertheless sounds weird in a small Midwest town in the final days of March, is true, i drew a straight line between those four points, namely - waitress, white linen, mud and dogs.

things will look much bright if i told you that i work with dogs and i am stoned (don't take the stoned part seriously, i just throw them randomly in the middle of my writing to get your attention. i have this bad habit of unnecessarily making long sentences which makes it difficult for some people to follow it through. if you are a guy you will jump back to your maximum attention potential when you read the word "stoned" and the same trick works with girls with different words like "turquoise" because they like colored stones. ).

however, there i was, in the middle of a field with six dogs.
only two of them came out of their mobile kennel, because we forgot to bring the keys of four. so they kinda stayed locked. and the only way the rushing dopamine in their head found a way out was through their incessant barking until one of them went to sleep and the rest followed. only a couple of dogs kept on running in a post harvested marijuana field with stubbles and thick mud ( well it was a maize field and not marijuana) trying hard to find those elusive pheasants pointing at which seemed to be the only thing the dogs had in mind.


karmen electra was the lead one with seven years of experience sharing the field with ten month old beyonce. (like always the proper nouns are just to wake you up. and girls, don't worry, next time i will use bradd pitt and matt damon.)
they were a wonder to watch. the elegance, the stride, the flair was impeccable. and when they went on point, leaves stopped ruffling, wind held its breath, and sun forgot to blink.


it was muddy. the dogs didn't care. neither did i, although for different reasons. dogs loved to point, and i loved the dogs. by the end of the day i was all mud.

it was getting late and i didn't eat anything since morning, and you don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out i was hungry. we packed up and hit the road.

have you ever been to a European restaurant? where everything is covered with exquisite white line sheets with embroidery and waitresses serve on roller blades? (now you know me too good to see that i bluffed regarding the roller blade stuff:)) where if you speak out loud people turn around and give that look? if you are a brat kid you just give them the WTF look back. but things are different when you are a grad student and you are accompanied by your adviser and both of you had an extensive mud bath.

the waitress approached us - with the same quizzical look except one of her eyes were fluorescent and she wore dark glasses.
"table for two." we stated.
"please wait 15 minutes." she replied back trying her best not to look at the muddy leather jackets we wore.

we needed to be back home early and looking into a 3 hour drive.

"don't worry then." we said. and you could read "relief!" in her eyes.
she wanted to thank us for not spoiling the white embroidered sheets, but her professional courtesy held her back.

"we will be back." we wanted to say. but something held us back.