My Parents Are Just Not That Into Me

i wish i could tell you guys everything. but we shall have to save it for my memoirs. after which i shall be friendless and penniless, and retire to my mountain spring-fed cave in the woods next to hole 8 at the local golf course.

here are some tiny morsels to savor in the meanwhile.

1) who wants to name their first child caligula? regardless of gender/species. that's 4 syllables! even the longest first names usually only have 3 minus ser-en-dip-i-ty but that's a hippie name (hahah whereas caligula is soooo yuppie/urban goodness). that fourth syllable will really ensure getting that kid beat up, or, optimistically speaking, getting a cool nick like "liggy" or "cal" or, my personal favorite horrendousness, "gula" (gue-la).


can you dig the lig?
courtesy of Beloit College

2) i asked for He's Just Not That Into You from my office secret santa. if i get a giant motivational poster of a wistful kitten with "someday your prince will come" written in blue yarn font across the bottom, i'll still consider this holiday a whomping success.

3) my parents like to nag me. naggger naggle nagganagganagganagganaggaNAGNAGnaaaaaaggles nagglewerp! i would be lying if i said i was a fan. a fan of their nag-team hijinks. they'll ask me to do something once then, quickly before i can even blink, 5-10 more times in rapidfire offensive rounds before i can even dangle my pinky toe off the couch in the pseudo-likeness of "hupping to it."

by the time they're done with me, i'm a carcass of the well-intentioned samaritan i used to be, with no feelings of duty or regard left towards my family, home and/or garage area/toolshed but just an overall numb robotic glean in my heart full of calculated misgivings.

but anyway. this is how i retaliate. with full-body high-impact sarcasm.

m: aparna, wash the dishes!
d: hey, didn't your mother tell you to wash the dishes!?
m: dishes!
d: dishes!
m: wash em!
d: wash those dishes!
m: freaking scrub a dub it!
d: i don't hear no scrubbin, maw? how boutchoo?
m: not a bubbly rinse to be heard, paw! aps, git to it!
d: git 'er donelike!
m: do it!
d: scrub it!
m: rubba dubba!
d: scrubbarooooooooo!!!

finally i yell "SILENCE!!!!!!"...


and in what is most probably viewed in slow-motion by my immigrant parents (AKA "team work ethic"), i put on "eye of the tiger", lunge into a sprint 100m dash-style towards the sink, snap on my gloves like i'm about to enter a ring and wash with such sudsy violent glory that there are shards of wine goblets and cracked plates and bowls and soapy blood everywhere by the end of the ordeal. whose life ketchup*? i don't even know. maybe it's kool-aid. the point is: nagging is no joke. i take it real serious. there's still a sliver of corningware embedded in my upper left cheek.

*life ketchup = blood. duh!


damn you conscience!
courtesy of Flickr and Seipp