On a Friday night…

It was a Friday evening around 6:30, my mobile rang. “Hey you wanna go for a dinner tonight?” asked a charming voice on the other side. Voww… a gal asks me for a dinner… she should be insane yeah… well… who else would ask you for a dinner idiot, it’s no time to think…“Ohh yeah sure…” Only a stupid would miss such an opportunity. Here comes the villain of my dinner… I mean my manager was walking towards me. Ok I am in trouble now…

“Can you look into that 8000 bytes defect?” (A customer’s child cries when the line gets wrapped after 8000bytes and he can’t stand his wife berating him that he is unfit even to baby-sit. He takes it out on us and threatens not to use our product if we don’t increase our line size support”) “Yes boss”

“Don’t forget the multi-button crash defect he is a priority customer” (Another a**hole pressed Ctrl+Shift+Space+F1 and F7 together and can’t believe that the computer shuts down. Well this guy has 20 fingers in each hand I guess)”Sure boss”

“Are you working on that demo?” (I have to prepare a 10 minutes demo on our product to be shown to US customers, well in short the reason for which my boss is going to fly to US next week) “Yeah boss it’s coming out well” “Well one more thing… talk to Chu Chi regarding the Chinese translation and Chi Chu regarding Japanese translation to our product. They both are in US and might come online in another hour” “Sure boss”

“So what plans for the weekend?” Well I did hear a plan now… “Nothing much boss… Might go out for a movie” “Don’t worry about these tasks. It’s ok if you can complete it before Monday. Enjoy the weekend” yeah I would like to enjoy, but where is the weekend.

In the hope of getting more peanuts than what I get currently my lips have forgotten the words NO BOSS. An American counterpart earns more than 10 times for doing half my job. Can a situation be worse than this? Well yeah… there are some masochists staying in the office 23X7, forced to go home for an hour to bathe. And since it’s a relative scale in which peanuts are distributed, the others are expected to contribute equivalent to what those morons do.

“You know what… a gal asked me for dinner tonight?” I proudly told my cube mate. “No wonder it rained in the afternoon today” he said. “Damn man, tell me a good restaurant” “There are many sagars nearby… why not shanthi sagar…” For reader’s knowledge, sagars are the cheap vegetarian restaurants in Bangalore. Invariably in every street of Bangalore you can find a sagar. A guy in his right senses would never take a gal to a sagar for dinner. “Well can you tell me a proper restaurant? I don’t mind if it’s costly, first time in my life a gal has asked me out for a dinner” “Well with inflation going at this rate I think you should reconsider the decision given the fact that there is no ROI on this dinner… I think…” “You don’t have the capacity to think. Stop thinking…No wonder you don’t have a gal friend though you are 27”.

“At least don’t go by bike, petrol is now 70 per liter” “What are you blabbering it’s just 50” I said. “No they are gonna increase it overnight since the crude oil rates have increased to $140 per barrel.” He was right; the article on the INTERNET said that the Petroleum minister has proposed increase in petrol prices to the prime minister in spite of the opposition by the communists. “F*** man, all other prices are gonna increase now” I said. Well it’s not rocket science, petrol is an essential commodity and the price of every other commodity is directly or indirectly dependent on it. “Yeah rice, vegetables, water, milk, gas, bus ticket, auto fare, inflation everything would increase” he said. “Is there anything that would not increase?” I asked him desperately. “Yeah there is one thing I know that would never increase” “What is that?” I asked eagerly. “Our salary of course” was the reply.

I started dreaming about the dinner. How should I talk to her? What should my first words be? “What is the first thing you would ask a gal when you take her for a dinner dude?” I asked my cube mate. “Well whether she can pay the bill for our dinner?” “You are a jackass. A genuine jackass.” “Thanks mate” he said. “Why are you thanking me for that?” “I am genuine not a pirated one” “Mokkaii…”

It was 7:30 already; I was preparing to leave for my dinner.

“Leaving so soon? Half day today?” asked my cube mate.

“It’s not polite, to keep a gal waiting.”

“What about the defects?”

“I will finish it over the weekend”

“What about talking to those guys in the translation team?”

“Ohh yeah I forgot that… Can you talk to them?”

“Me…? Yeah sure… I wanted to talk to those American guys… they are the major reason for the increase in oil prices” One second… this guy is gonna screw up my job here. “Forget it. I will come early on Monday and talk to them.”

I started for the first date of my life…

DISCLAIMER: As usual the post contains some fiction. I wasn't able to find an insane gal to call me for a dinner. My first date is still a distant dream. My manager is not such a moron, he is in fact a pretty good guy.(In case he reads it :))