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Monday, July 28, 2014

I forget

I forget. I forget to switch off the headlights of my car. I've had this car for less than six months. I have also dried up the battery three times in those six months. That’s about once every two months, in spite of being cautious and completely aware of my problems with lights. I know I forget, but I also forget that I forget.
The first time it occurred, it was ten in the night. Who in the right mind would forget to switch off lights in such utter darkness? I did, probably it was a full moon day. I called up the insurance company to fix the dead battery. The battery was not dead that it cannot come alive, the battery was just in a coma state, like those heroes in the tragic movies who wake up to say the final lines after the heroine shed drops of tears in despair. I waited for my car’s heroine to bring it out from coma. She arrived — the car doctor, in a funky car that shouted ‘I LOVE PINK and I'm blind to all the other colors’ and pulled out a red box much like a doctor’s defibrillator.
The car came alive, puffing, panting and ready to run around. Like any other car doctor, she advised me to keep the car running for at least twenty minutes before asking me to sign a bunch of papers. Then you tip her, attend automated phone calls to provide feedback hoping that the insurance company is tracking all your wonderful feedbacks that will eventually turn into a sizable discount the next time you renew. Or you’ll probably find them expensive and switch to a new insurance provider, who' will charge you for the crow-shit on the passenger side door-handle.
If I can forget to switch off the light at night, I can do it in the broad daylight too. To be really honest, there was n’t much daylight on that foggy, rainy morning. I parked my car under the usual tree that gave reasonable shade in the insanely hot parking lot. The office parking lot is humongous, and with all the cars humming all the time, it is no place for humming birds or human beings. It is so hot that you might wonder if the Sun is somehow closer to the parking lot than the rest of the places in the world. It is hot enough to turn an egg into an omelet if you don't mind your dashboard getting a little sticky and smelly.
On that rainy day, when my battery went into a coma state for the second time, I had borrowed a colorful umbrella from a colleague at office. That is also the day I understood the logic of why people buy kaleidoscopic umbrellas. I just had to say, “Look for a rainbow in the parking lot” to the car-doctor who had no trouble in finding me in that parking lot. He came in a flashy car, and he promptly finished his defibrillation even before I closed my flashy umbrella. Now I had to tip him. I wondered why I should tip a guy who came in a maroon Challenger when I rode a marooned so called car. Oh- what the heck, I paid him. You don't get to tip to people who are richer than you every day.
The third time hasn't occurred yet. But it has occurred many times within my subconscious. I wake up in the middle of the night, I ponder about the time I parked my car at the community where I live. I probably won't remember much apart from dinner. Anyway,I grab the keys from the porcelain bowl at the door and run to the parking lot only to breathe a sigh of relief. The car would be perfectly okay. I had switched it off when I parked it.
I know that it serves no purpose to get excited in the middle of the night, the battery would be either in a coma-state or in perfect condition, and it wouldn't matter much if I continued to sleep, but I forget. I forget that there is only a thin line between what you are aware and what you think you are aware.