Moments of Madness

(This blog was one of the winning entries in the Moments of Madness contest by BlogAdda.)

Trying to categorize moments of madness can be quite challenging, especially in the life of a person who provides entertainment to his friends around, with his unintentionally funny antics. Listed below are a few of the trivial events in my life, which have brought the retarded nature in me to the forefront, and made me get amused at my own doings.

Cart thieves

A graduate student in US, who does not have access to a car to go to the nearby grocery store invariably struggles in carrying the couple of gallon-cans of milk, juice cartons, watermelons, along with other stuff, back home. Usually we pick up things from a market that is open beyond midnight, the best time for us poor souls, and walk all the way back home carrying them. A few stores would let us take the carts back home and pick up the carts the next day. But a few stores that weren’t generous enough, would have a magnetic sensor in their carts, and the cart would not move past the stores’ interiors.

A couple years back, myself and another partner in crime bought half the items in the store and not being able to carry the stuff, tried to lift the cart across the wall and miserably failed. This was a disastrous experiment and I vowed I would never try it again. But, 'laziness overcomes any vow'. Once again, we (a group of four this time) were there and as usual swiped our credit cards away to glory. I tried an age-old tested experiment on the cart then, just for fun. I lifted the cart’s front wheels and just pushed the cart, which stood, on its rear wheels alone. The trick worked, the cart wheels were not locked by the magnetic sensor.

Later, when we were on our midnight trip to the store once again, each of us took a cart to try the trick, and the trick didn’t work. The cartwheels were stuck. But my accomplice in crime saw a unique thing. It was just the front wheels that were locked, that too only from in front. So she gave us the ‘Nobel Laureate’ idea of pulling the cart backwards. And the cart moved with ease. Even though it meant complicated handling from our side, it did save us that day from having to lug back the groceries home.

Jump to (from) death

The time was 12:40am. The store that we frequent closes at 1am. It is only past midnight that, either me or my good friend would end up discovering that our houses will soon be drought-affected and we need to get some basic food. Basic food in some cases also includes watermelons, ice creams, flavored yogurt and more, thanks to the wonderful 45 degree centigrade summer weather we are in.

That night, to fight against the impending drought, we decided to make the trip to the grocery store. It was also a known fact that a goods train that would run longer than ten episodes of ‘Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi’, would pass near the store, thereby blocking access to the store. Hence we hurried up and walked towards to the store, only to hear the train engine from a distance. The Usain Bolts that we are, tried to run towards the track hoping to cross it before the train arrives. And we were probably a couple of meters away from the crossing, and we saw the train approaching, slowly though. Just like how a hungry monkey jumps to catch its food, no matter what the circumstances are, we just ran in front of the train to cross the track, with no thought of what might actually happen. And when I next opened my eyes, we were there, present on the other side of the track. And we looked back at the train, and it turns out that it had stopped midway. You surely can imagine the look on our faces then!

White Water Rafting with a White face

Once on a trip to the Great Smoky Mountain national park in Tennessee, we had dedicated an entire day to trails, hikes and white water rafting. The not-so-adventurous person that I am, didn’t want to venture into white water rafting. But my ever-persuasive friends (who doesn’t have such friends?) somehow convinced me into this. Upon reaching the spot and paying for it, we were made to sign an agreement that read: ‘I am responsible for my life, and severe injury or death may result in case of unforeseen circumstances.’ My heart skipped a beat, and I wanted to get away from them there as early as possible. But, I put up a brave face and got into the bus that took us to the river, where we were instructed on how to row and also provided some safety tips.

We got to our raft where our instructor made the five of us sit in appropriate positions, such that the raft was balanced. Two of the braver friends made it to the front, followed by the girls, followed by the instructor and me. Apparently, the level 3 and 4 rapids were the most common ones that day, and my heart skipped another beat (though I later learnt level 5 and 6 were the harder ones). Having heard horror stories about the instructors having to abandon a drowning rafter, in order to save the rest of them on the boat, I made up my mind to hold on to the grip on the raft. Wait – there was no grip or handle on the raft, all that I could do was to lock my foot inside the raft safely. Having done that, we embarked on our journey, and our instructors gave us good instructions, and we had a good time. There were three instances were the raft was about to capsize, but it ultimately didn’t happen. But my friend in front lost quite a bit of her hair, as a result of me trying to hold on to it for grip. And the end of the rafting trip, I vowed I would never ever go on one again. This nerve-racking experience was sufficient for a lifetime! The pictures taken during the rafting showed me as a white-faced coward, much to the amusement of my friends.

Good deeds Eclipsed

Recently, I was at the cinemas with two other friends to watch ‘The Karate Kid’. Walking towards the theater from the parking lot, we saw a girl in her teens trying to get a few chairs out of her car, and she requested us for help. Assuming the chair was for her old parents or handicapped friends, we helped her carry the chairs. On the way, upon enquiring what movie she was going to watch, I got to know it the teenage girls heartthrob Robert Pattinson starrer Eclipse, the third installment of the Twilight Series. I got a suspicion then, since the first show of the movie was not going to be screened until midnight. We continued talking, and took her chairs along and she pointed to her friends who were waiting there in the line to get the tickets. And who were the friends? Two other girls who surely were Twilight fans, and were munching away pop corn and chips to glory. That was the moment! I was mad at this girl, not for having made us carry it, but for having made us carry it for these two useless friends. And I got another reason to hate the Twilight series!

Final moment of madness

It was 11am. I’d just then woken up, for the nocturnal person that I am. It takes a while for me to get out of the bed and head to perform my mandatory morning chores. But on that day, I was fresher than ever, and I wanted to get the maximum out of the remainder of the morning, in terms of work. Heading to the restroom, and realizing after a flush that the water tank in the restroom is not getting filled up, is not the best thing that could happen to a person on a Monday morning. I open the tap in the washbasin and I get the coolest breeze of air that even my air-conditioner has failed to produce. And you surely can imagine the moment of madness then! I will not get into the details of the events that followed, but I sure realized that, it’s for a reason that people have said –‘early to bed, early to rise.’

This blog is in response to the BlogAdda contest ‘Moments of Madness’ sponsored by Pringoo.

I am Mad
I am Mad