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Pensioners’ predicament

 Published in The Hindu Open Page

Pensioners’ predicament

How to be useful and not be a ‘nuisance’

THOMAS PAUL

July 11, 2021 12:53 am | Updated 12:53 am IST


Cynics say that early to bed and early to rise makes a pensioner a nuisance around the house. So a recently retired man decided to switch seamlessly from a 30-year nine-to-five office routine to a life of quality time, and not be a nuisance while he is at it.

In pursuance of a morning-walk regime, he sets the alarm for 6 a.m., but his bladder wakes him up at 5.30 a.m. The rest of his household is in deep slumber. In his recently adopted self-sufficient mode, he goes to the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea. His main aim is to conduct a noiseless kitchen operation, and not to awaken the entire household at that ungodly hour, earning everyone else’s ire. He switches on the light and finds it too bright, appearing to light up the whole house. It may invite censure from his sleep-disturbed family. So he switches it off and settles for work in semi-darkness, martyr that he is.

He tiptoes around the kitchen for 10 minutes, hoping to locate the elusive kettle which he suspects that his wife has deliberately kept hidden, just to send him on a meaningless treasure-hunt, and also to show him who owns the kitchen. He finally spots the kettle, partially visible under a pyramid of washed vessels.

Hoping for a noiseless manoeuvre, he gingerly pulls it out inch by inch. The malign pyramid waits till the kettle is 99% eased out and then crashes down spectacularly, causing him to experience a minor cardiac episode. He holds his breath for the next five minutes waiting for a furious complaint from the startled household.

Fanned out

This is where science comes to his rescue, in the form of noise-cancellation. In all the rooms of his house, the fans are whirring, slashing air ferociously at the maximum regulator setting (which is the only setting his family knows), and the crash of the vessels in the kitchen does not penetrate through this sound barrier of air being massacred. So far, so good.

It is a weekday evening, and the family is settled in front of the TV. He is the last in the queue to watch his favourite channel. So he retires to his room, surfing YouTube on his laptop.

It is a weekday morning. The rest of the family has gone out for work. The household is at peace again, with just he and his wife there. He is trying to read a book. From the kitchen, his wife is advising that he should be more involved and proactive about this and that.

She stops mid-sentence and lets out a horror-movie screech, rushing out and breathlessly announcing the appearance of a monstrous winged insect.

He goes in, swats the tiny beetle and has a Eureka moment of realisation. If he is to retain his relevance in the household, especially in the eyes of his old lady, he needs to keep a stock of spiders and tiny beetles in a jar and release them in the kitchen periodically whenever she begins her lecture.

sagitex@gmail.com

https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/pensioners-predicament/article35248045.ece

 

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