Lessons Learnt (Arz000n)

It was a bright Sunday afternoon, if I remember from the month of August. You know how August summers generally are in Mumbai – unbearable heat, water supply shortage, frequent power-cuts, surprisingly huge discount offers in Pizza Hut, etc. I’m bad in portraying the perfect picture, but I hope you are able to paint a good one in your mind.

I was working at home like a good guy, when my cell phone suddenly started ringing – Tring-tring, Tring-tring, Tring-tring. Well if you are wondering, I don’t keep fancy ring tones; it’s the default one that came with Nokia.

“Hello, this is Z00nie. May I know who this is?”
“Blue or Red pill. Choice is yours”, a s**y female voice said.

If you hear random people calling you to discuss about pills, lot of things instantly starts churning in your mind:

1. Pills? When was the last time I was absolutely stoned and got a gal back home?
2. Pills? When did I change my profession to be a pharmacist?
3. Pills? What pills? I don’t need any pills. I don’t take drugs
4. Pills? Is this about bank loan…monthly instalments…free credit card offer?
5. Pills? Errrmmm…wrong number maybe?
   

“Excuse me”, I continued trying to suppress the series of questions being stormed in my head.
“Do you want to meet in Red Chilli Peppers or Bombay Blues, you moron”, was what I heard.
“Is that Uttara? Jesus Christ…you scared the living sh*t out of me!!”
“Ya it is. I just finished watching MATRIX and I kind of like Laurence Fishburne”
“Who is he?”
“It doesn’t matter, Blue or red?”, she kept repeating. I tried to put aside all the weird question the word PILL got in my head and tried to remain calm.
“Well, I heard of a good offer going on in Pizza Hut, if you fancy pizzas. Boy, am craving for one right now. So how about…”
“Good. Let’s meet in Dominos then. They have excellent choice of pizza's”
“Alwite!!”

I still don’t understand the purpose of that call. But whatever it is, being a good guy that I am (thank you!!) I agreed to meet, Uttara (also popularly known as Uttssy, ta-ra-ra-ra, Utta-ra-ra-ra, Utta-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra and by many other pet names), Neha (Musings) and InciVinci (I forgot his real name – the reason for which is in the lessons learnt below)

The choice of restaurant was excellent, the ambience was amazing and our seating was just brilliant for the first blog meet. Anyone could just walk in, look into our plates and say – “Dude, I want to have...hmmmm...that one...that flavour of pizza”, pointing to the one I would be chewing at that moment.

You guessed it right - we were close to the entrance, infact so close that if someone runs into Dominos at the speed of 80 miles per hour in the forward direction, would land directly on our pizza toppings.

Anyway, all four of us spent 5 hours together talking about nothing, that’s right - absolutely nothing, but we manage to consume 8 different varieties of pizza, 8 bottles of sprite and still when we left Dominos, we all were eyeing Bombay Blues. I think it was due to summer heat.

Call me Bizarre or just plain old Z000nie, but when I’m with friends (who generally talk about pills), I tend to crack more jokes than when I am with say, my pet dog. So while the conversation about nothing was in progress, I tend to drop in a general knowledge question for Uttsy. The reply to this question might be considered inappropriate (or as they say in more sophisticated terms these days – CENSORED) in certain parts of India.

“What is this new blog pet names you guys up to these days?”, I threw it in Uttara’s direction. Meanwhile, Neha and Inci-vinci were trying to finish whatever was left on the plates, with the fear that the next person to walk in might just grab it from their hands.
“What do you mean?”, she replied.
“You know…you are the UTTSY, Musings is called as Musssy and Divya is called as Dissy”
“Yeah I know, You are Arz000n. So you will be called as A*sy”
“Kewl!! I don’t mind being A*sy, but I just wonder what Puneet will be called as.”

There was a pin drop silence on the table, as if I just dropped my clothes to show my private parts or something.

“You moron” were the exact words that our so-called friendly-next-door-girl UTTSY said, before she threw Sprite bottles in my direction. I tried to dodge it, by moving towards right, but then she had just seen MATRIX, so the effect was on her mind. A series of bottles flew in my direction that evening around 8 of them within next 10 seconds, out of which one hit my head.

I don’t know what happened next, because when I got hold of my consciousness, all my pizza slices were gone and my Sprite tasted like water. I’m sure somebody must have walked into the restaurant while I was down.

Well I want to conclude this life-threatening incident with a series of lessons learnt that evening:

1. Never crack a joke with a gal that includes topics close to her heart like Pizza toppings, Tomato sauce flavours, Br* and the CENSORED reply above.
2. If you are hit by a bottle of sprite exactly at the location on your head just above your eye-brow, chances are that you might lose your memory. I still can’t remember what happened in my life between 1995 and 1998.
3. Your friends, no matter how close they are in terms of friendship, always take advantage of your unconsciousness and steal your drinks (best friends run away with your food as well).
4. Sprite doesn’t taste like mineral water.
5. I can’t remember this point right now. It was …. Errrmmmm…