When Vanity demanded action

The dialogue that precedes our social outing is usually something like -

Me: enna ma, readya?

Sindhu (my wife): Yeah. Almost..

...which translates to

Grab a drink, check your Twitter and Gmail, while I come down in 20 minutes.

Recently, the dialogue has changed, with heavy accompaniment of grunts and groans, to:

Sindhu: onnum sariya illa. Nothing fits. ellaan dress'um tight aidthu!

Me: I know! I gotta lose weight too. I am sooo fat. *gasps of pain*... as I squeeze into clothes that appear to have shrunk over the months.

In a sad attempt to lift the spirits, Sindhu would nudge in,

S: Look you shouldn't complain okay. You look fine. It is me. I have to work out.

M: Aiya, no way. You look great!  (A quick nano-second mental word check wisely ruled out "you look fine" - incorrect; "you look okay" - worse; "you look alright" - pochu!). I am the one who needs to lose weight. Look at this thoppai and all. See! *poke finger into the fat guts to illustrate the point*

It irks when someone half your weight complains they gotta slim down. Somehow thin is never thin enough. Neither of us have been eating out much, and have managed to resist that extra spoon of Therattu Paal with Vennila Ice Cream or the extra dollops of Custard with warm Plum pudding, which only adds to the mystery surrounding the condition of shrinking clothes. Whether neither of us recall eating any less is a...well, lets not go there :)

Moving on.

Vanity demanded action. In addition to the daily jog/run, a diet of freshly squeezed juice, I decided, would be the magic solution. We had a brand new juice maker still in the box. One afternoon while Sindhu was asleep, I opened a bag of oranges and grapefruit. Peeling oranges and grapefruit is the most demanding job of the juice making process. Both fruits are strong contenders of "Thick-skinned bastard" title of fruit race. I'd back Grapefruit for the title because its a badass - it tastes like an angry tamarind on steroids.

The juicer was simple to assemble. I was excited as fresh juice and dramatic weight loss were just moments away. Images of orange being devoured by the juicer popped up in my head. I dropped a large chunk of orange down the chute and pressed the ON button...

...and watched in slow motion horror as thousands of fragments of orange pulp and juice flew across the kitchen spraying it 360 degrees. Thwack thwack thwack! A large lump of orange splattered against on my cheek, which shook me out of the freeze and total moment of blankness, I slammed the OFF button.

The kitchen and adjacent living room walls had a newly decorated coat of orange. The original plan of coffee and fresh juice had turned to custard thanks to me not fitting the juicer parts properly.

Sindhu woke up an hour later.

"I made some juice", I said.

"Yeahh. I can smell it. It smells oranges everywhere!"

"Lovely, la?", I said, spotting a lump of orange pulp hanging from the folds of our brand new living room curtain. Damn!