Foot-in-Mouth-osis

We all suffer from it. The famous foot-in-mouth-osis or the 'make a fool of yourself in public' syndrome.

The only difference between me and the rest of you mere mortals is that I manage to put my stinking foot which has toenails with chipped nail paint the brand of which you used to get only way back in 1947, the garnled toes which seem to have lost their human color and have accquired a ghostly green colour and havent seen the light of day since someone died of carbon monoxide poisioning when I removed my shoes last; into my mouth a lot.
Infact, when the first Harry Potter movie showed a gruesomely closeup scene of the troll's foot, I went, "Hey! you cant use my foot as a double for a troll!!! " sheesh, I felt so violated , how can someone pass off my foot to be a trolls' and not even pay me for using a part of my body :D

Which, if you were too disgusted to read the above paragraph means - I make a fool of myself in public a lot more than most people do.

Here, is a list of those instances which made me wish I had those beautiful pedicured toes that madam Aishwarya posseses, if not for anything else, just for the sheer joy of knowing that what's in my mouth wont be classified as a biochemical weapon.

Scene 1
I take a half day off, to stroll around with a friend's friend, whom Im meeting as a favor for the friend, to help settle down in 'namma bengaluru'. The friend's friend ( F'F hence forth) starts feeling hungry, so we end up at this pizza joint at 3 PM, which means the place is practically empty. We run up a bill, eating all the cheese we could find, stash away some ketchup bottles for later ... and I flash a card to the frowing waitress who Im sure is angry because we managed to destroy her rendevous with the chef in the 'hot' kitchen. She pouts and sulks and relplies - " sawry maadam, no power; no card machine." I run down to the nearest ATM, (and the nearest ATM is as far as the Effiel tower is from the Gateway of India), the damn machine spews only Rs 1000 notes, no other denominations are available. The bill (surprise?) isnt a round figure but something that goes like 897.47 or something equally horrid. The waitress (surprise surprise?) has no change. I turn around, and see just one more table occupied, I decide to ask the guy sitting there and see if the Lord shows mercy, but Alas! He turns out to be a guy I'd met at my grandmom's insistence * sheesshh* he turns around
him - " oh, hi ..."
me - *gulp* ( reminded of I'd laughed at his wierd Zurich accent) h-h-hii..
him - so having food here?
me - * no dude, trying to do bhangda* (aloud) - ye-ahh, with a friend, would you happen to have some change for ...
my F's F butts in,
F's F - Hey, your friend?
me - err.. no!
F's F - (nudges me) friend?? sotto voce - youre going red in the face, do you know that?
him - ahem? no, we arent friends. We'd met for a proposal
( oh, and did I tell you - "he" is a grunting, Mr. Bean hating, humorless, bearded, 'im-a-brahmin-so-im-better-than-you' , 'im-a-science so&so-hence-im-better-than-you-poor-commerce-bungler guy ... and should I add, that I have had quite a few laughs ( alone - he's humorless, remember) at his attitude)
F's F - *almost shrieks in horror* You are going to get MARRIED TO HIM? ( each word louder than the previous)
Me - Why do you think I would marry a lamp post? ( and smile at the man - who has this murderous glint in his eye)
*ooopppsss, the foot goes right into the mouth :-( *
Needless to say, 'he' didnt have any change ( i think he was being sadistic) and I had to hunt around the place for it, and by the time I came back, F'sF was standing outside, the power was up again, and the card machine worked!
Sheesh!
----------------------------------------------------------------
Scene 2:

ICWA foundation results are out - everyone in the gang has passed, a couple of us have gotten national ranks. One poor lady though hasnt gotten through. I breeze in, feeling on top of the world with my Rank 4 ( ok ok, Im a show off, a nerdy show off at that *sticks toungue out*)
A crowd is gathered at S's bench.
Me- hey wat happened? Some new assignment?
Random friend - Nopes, S didnt get through
I make my way through to her bench, and there she sits howling and bawling. Im one of her best friends and hence automatically assumed I will do the consoling. Like a good friend, I go put my arm on her shoulder, look at her sympathetically, while she leans into my armpit and bawls ( grief makes people bear the stink of my smelly armpits - yes it does).
Me - its ok S. There must be a mistake
S - No Dolly, I failed, and it hurts ... you and P get a rank, and I dont even pass * more tears, my already wet armpit is now soaked in tears, and Im thinking if the salty stains on the dress will ever go*
Me - thats alright - its only hurting because this is the first time, wont hurt hence forth.
The whole class stares at me in a muted silence - what did I just say?
Needless to say, S never ever spoke to me ever. In spite of having to sit next to me for the next few months, she maintained a stony silence, not withstanding all the pleading and 'sorrying' I did over the period.
When I get murdered, you know whom to suspect.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Scene 3

Im visiting my school after 10th, just because I feel nostalgic about the place; for the first time, my headmistress smiles at me, when in school, the expression she had when she saw me was one of abject sorrow ( Im sure she viewed me as a punishment for all the evil deeds she and maybe the whole of her dynasty had done in some long forgotten birth).
I walked up to her, and told her how nostalgic I was, and how freedom was so restricted in this new college where they taught CA, and how I would love to get back to school days
She smiled ( and Im sure uttered a silent prayer that there was NO WAY I could get back to school days, especially 2 years later - now that I think of it, was there an underlying reason why I passed school? maybe .. just maybe) and asked what I thought of my business laws lecturer.
I ranted about how boring he was, how he only spoke to himself, and how the 'old man' ( yes the very same words) was too old to even die, forget teach, and how even she was a better teacher than him ( though I spent most of her classes sleeping)
Her smile grew smaller and smaller .. instead of wider, that I noticed that something was amiss, I asked her .. and her barely audible voice told me that he was her husband.
A normal human would go red at this relevation, stare pointedly at either the paper weight kept there, and wonder if it was okay to hit oneself to death, or look out of the window and think if jumping down from the ground floor window ever killed anyone, but then, they are normal humans, not me.
I just shrieked, and shouted " but you look so young! HE is YOUR husband? what happened? You had a child marriage? "
Every single person in a radius of 2 Km would have heard it. I left my headmistress stuttering and stammering about he 'looking' old, and how I'd lost all of my marbles and manners having left school. She probably was kicking herself for the day she okayed my admission to the school.

The result? you ask?
The business laws lecturer came in a transformed man the following week, chequered shirt, dyed hair, casual trousers, and a feeble attempt at nerdy jokes, which made us yawn more than it made us laugh.It doesnt stop there yet .. no. We are around 150 people in this class, so the man has to use a collar mic. He steps up on the podium, takes stance, adjusts his mic, looks at me, and bellows into the mic - " Am I now looking young enough to teach laws lady?"
* blush stutter stammer* while the whole class guffaws in laughter.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scenes 4 may not qualify to be foot-in-mouth, but wat the heck :D here it goes

Scene 4
Me and a friend (lets say F1)are at crossword, and we are sitting at the exact same place where me and another friend ( say F2) were sitting some days back.
The setting is exactly the same ... the stack of books piled up is unchanged, overall its a deja-vu.
I start with a small smile, then a grin and then I start laughing.
F1 asks me if this was my 'time to act lunatic' period. I try to stifle my laughter and tell him of how me and F2 were here, and how it seemed like a deja vu. F1 rolls his eyes and goes ' yeah, looking at the same books, can be pretty hilarious yes'.
I ask him to look at the author of those books - Dick Francis.
F2 had taken one look at the author's name and had guffawed ...
F2 - "what WERE his parents thinking when they named him that?"
Me - ( immersed in reading The Namesake) - err.. huh.. whaaaa?
F2 - Dick? Dick Francis? what will the hair on his head be called? pubic hair? * rotfl*
Me - * rotfl*
I repeat this to F1, and tell him, that now that I saw the book again, and thought of the "hair on the head" thing, I just realised that there should be no hair on the head ( if you know what Im talking about)
F1 laughs ( laugh is an understatement) .. and goes, "oh yeah, where should the hair be then?" and we walk into the coffee day located inside cross word
I imagine a big 'Dick' Francis and explain where the hair should be, so caught up we are in our imaginations, that we fail to see a shocked old man sitting in the adjacent table and listening to our animated conversation ( he couldnt help it, we were so loud and racous, and howling with laughter about how the head's 'shape' would be, and how he would have a 'double chin' and an extremely 'long' neck .. long is beautiful :D ( oh damn, you need a vivid imagination for this !)
A ride to Crossword - Rs 100/-
A couple of cappuchinos in coffee day - Rs 90/-
The shocked expression on the old man's face - Priceless!