Are You Crazy?

This post is all about fun, humour and totally going crazy. So if you had anything serious in mind, kindly refer to older posts of mine on this platform, there is lot of food for thought there !

“It’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than to be absolutely boring.”

– Marilyn Monroe

As we grow, we realise the moments most cherished are the happy moments. Happiness is when something happens as per expectations (or better). But the most happy moments are the ones which make us laugh, rofl, lol, laugh out loud for heaven’s sake !!! 

“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”

– H.S. Thompson

Now when it comes to funny moments, they could be by someone else, i.e. someone played a prank on us, they made a joke of us (with no major physical or emotional damage to anyone, of course); these also could be where we played a joke on someone else (the smarter, the better); but the best ones are where we did something absolutely stupid, a booboo, as some people call it.

So the idea of the post is for me to share some of these funny moments, some of my own booboos and expect all of you, honestly, to share yours, in the comments section. Would also love to edit and include the really good ones in the updated post itself. This will become the Bible of booboos !! Does it sound fun? Then lets begin:

• There was this one time, when I had planned a trip along with family. It was from Bangalore to Delhi, I think. I had booked the tickets online. On the day of the travel, 2 hours before the departure time, as I looked at the e-ticket to re-confirm the flight no., I realised that I it was for the previous day!!  Soon, I was in the cab with wife and kid, booking the ticket for the same flight on that day, as we proceeded to the airport, with them being totally unaware of what had happened!

“You can’t be old and wise, if you were never young and crazy.”

– Chris Brown

• My first ever trip to Las Vegas was made memorable because of nothing that city is famous for. I missed my flight out of Vegas. And how ! I was out with colleagues, partying in the casino till 2 am. Had a 7:30 am departure flight that morning, for which I had to wake up at 5:30 and leave the hotel at 6. Had told the desk attendant to give me a wake up call. But when I woke up, it was 8:00 am. And the attendant calmly told me that they gave me a call once or twice and I did not pick up the phone. It was quite embarrassing, as I was on a business trip (yeah, lots of deals happen in Vegas 😉 ; the first and the last time I missed my flight  because of a dumb hotel receptionist!

“If being crazy means living a life as if it matters, then I don’t care if we are completely insane.”

– Unknown

• These were days when we did not have smartphones. Only feature phones. So emails had to be read and responded to on laptops. As a dedicated, diligent sales guy on the go, in Japan (where prompt replies on email get extra brownie points), I would be often scene changing trains with open laptop in one hand, the laptop bag slung over the shoulders and typing an email with the right hand. I did that many times !!!  I would have 6-8 train changes to make for 2-3 meetings in a day. There were days when the no. of meetings was 5 and train changes were 11-12 ! Absolutely crazy, I tell you, we sales guys are !!

“We are all born mad. Some remain so.”

– Samuel Beckett

• I found this book so engrossing one day, that in order to not be disturbed, I went to the loo and read the whole book for three hours. Don’t ask me the name of the book. I forgot 🙁 Told you, its all about being crazy !!!
• Once my colleague came to office. on time. but guess what? he forgot his laptop bag at home. A 45 min drive from home to office in his own car, it did not occur to him that he did not have his laptop bag with him. And with no desktops in the office, as we all had our own laptop, it was funny this guy was appreciating the whiteness of the wall in his cabin desk while twiddling his thumbs and rubbing his palms on a busy Monday morning !
• Many-a-times, the ‘bahu’ is nervous when in-laws come over for a short stay. There was this one time, when two white things got mixed up and my wife had put salt instead of sugar in dad’s morning tea. I still remember how calm he was when he smiled and told my wife that the tea left a salty taste in his mouth (he had it all without complaint).

“A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?”

– Albert Einstein

• Back then, when we were kids, there was some genuinely good April fool jokes that people played on each other. I remember two of them really well:
  • My sister and her friend, made Gulab Jamuns using crushed bricks and actually convinced my friend to try one of them.. it was hilarious when he actually put that in his mouth, least realising his close friend’s sister would play such a trick on him.
  • My friend had got a job offer from Wipro on campus. But in those days, due to recession, companies were known to ‘reconsider’ these offers and push the joining date by months, without any clarity on when the real start date would be. So her friends decided to take a trip of her, on her bday, which also happened to be April fools day! So they had a letter on Wipro’s letter head mailed to her address, setting up a meeting with their ‘executive’ in a local 5 start hotel for a ‘re-interview’. poor girl got all formally dressed on her bday, on April 1, and went for this fake interview and it was some 20 mins into the interview, the guy could not hold back his laugher and shared his identity!!
• Once we were at our friend’s house for dinner and after dinner, my wife was confused on wether to have green tea or soda and the host decided to ease her confusion by giving her Green tea (tea bag) dipped in sparkling water (soda) !! We all had a great laugh on this innovation.

“Sometimes, the only way to stay sane is to go a little crazy.” – Matt Nguyen

So these are some of the lighter, absolutely crazy moments that I could juggle my memory and come up with. Would try and share more in updated version, but more importantly, want all of you to share your stories as well!!

Its high time we all share our own version of  Jignes Patel !! 

Lets make this a fun funnier funniest Wednesday!!!