The Almighty Clanger-I

Everyone at some stage in their life will suffer from a swift bout of foot-in-mouth disease.  The onset is immediate, the symptoms diabolical and the after-effects, variable.  When FIM occurs, symptoms last as long as you and the person/s you have offended are in the same space and time equation.  And that can last as long as a piece of string.

FIM's certainty is kind of like that of death, taxes and missing socks - only, as a figurative disease it doesn't cause death quite as often as victims might wish.

My family suffers from this condition quite frequently.  Here are some cases.

1) We've recently moved to Delhi.  We have had a lot of our furniture, luggage and groceries delivered to the gate of the building we live in.  We live on the second floor and there is no lift.  This means we have to trudge up the stairs every time something is delivered feeling like Moses going the wrong way.  There is a classic stooped over, elderly watchman who keeps a look out for any visitors, mail and deliveries.  One day, several heavy boxes were delivered to our house and because our arms were full with household essentials, a bunch of them needed to remain at the gate.  Transliterating quickly and badly from English to Hindi, I asked my watchman to keep 'one' eye on all the stuff we were leaving downstairs.  Only when I was halfway up the stairs did I realise that our watchman, literally, only has one eye.

2) My wife was travelling through London on a cheerful night out (coff).  Happening upon one of those licenced Big Issue sellers (read: marginally employed homeless person) with one final issue of the magazine left.  Since Big Issue sellers are generally considered 'off work' once they finish selling all the copies in their quota, my wife cheerily bought the last one and said, 'You can finally go home now!', realising her mistake moments later.

3) Z, my three and a half year-old son, on leaving the gate of our premises in Delhi, feels the need to point out to everyone within earshot that our watchman has only one eye.  He certainly has foot-in-mouth, but is clearly too young to realise it.  Ahh, youth!

If you are too young to realise that you have foot-in-mouth disease, be sure that the symptoms will come back to haunt you repeatedly when you're older.  It's usually when you're at a party or with friends and your parents happen to think that the retelling of such stories is 'cute'.  Ahh, whisky!