Snail in our Mail

If you thought that that our family was 11 of us only, you were wrong.

Our mailbox is home to a family of snails. They think our mails are their meals. I think their favourite dish is important bank documents. Our pin numbers and bank statements are digested and excreted overnight. All that is left of those is the ANZ Bank logo. They don’t seem to like the junk mail at all. The fliers from cheap Chinese restaurants in the neighbourhood....or the price list of the local grocery shop are left untouched. It’s just the mails with our names on it that they like. This makes me sure that it’s a conspiracy. They do it deliberately. If paper was food, surely they wouldn’t let go of the colourful brochures, which look (and maybe even taste?) much better than the bland looking bank documents. But no. They want to chew our financials. True, our savings account balance is $0.00 (after buying this house). But come on. Some respect? At least leave the “minimum balance due” and the “due date” intact?

We have to call up the banks and redirect our mails to our office addresses. But the softy that I am, I don’t want to starve them. So I have decided that after I pay the bills, I will put them back in the mailbox for the snails.

If Sister Anne Mary (of Loreto convent) was reading this, she would know that I may never have memorised the Christmas carols, but I was paying attention to “All things bright and beautiful...all creatures great and small”.

But most importantly, I hope the snails realise what a kind lady I am and leave my “End of season VIP shoe sale discount vouchers” alone, which I was told by the shoe shop had already been dispatched and cannot be redirected. I have spent thousands of dollars all year to win these (and that explains our savings balance too). If anything happens to them, the “creatures great and small” better have their tombstone ready.

Graphic - Courtesy Google.

Our family is growing...

And suddenly, we are a family of 11. Some of us...2 to be more precise, prefer to stay indoors. While the other 9, prefer the pond outside. Yes, we have a new house now....with our very own fish pond too!

Introducing 9 new characters in the Sen family. I apologise to them for not coming up with gender-based names; but I thought they would hate me even more if I held them out of water to inspect their bottoms to determine their gender (not sure if that’s where lies the secret):

Anarkali, Kathakali, Peyajkali - They are coy, Japanese coy (Koi)...and their names are part of an aquatic experiment to see if fish can get an identity crisis if they are named after legendary humans, dance forms and vegetables.

Katrina – The prettiest gold fish named after the Bollywood actress. No prizes for guessing who named her. If you know why I am forced to watch trash Hindi movies starring Katrina Kaif, you will pretty much know why we have one in our pond. She exercises all day (swims every second, while the others often float lazily, enjoying the sun and the moss). And really watches her diet (eats the least) to maintain that figure of hers. She may have won quite a few pond enemies and I am praying there are no cat fights in there. (Can fish have cat fights anyway? But I do have catfish in the pond too!)

Gupi and Bagha – The 2 catfish, rather shy. My tribute to the legend that Ray was....and hopes for some good song and drums for the pond mates. Again, not sure if fish enjoy song and drums. Maybe their version of it involves sending out bubbles of different shapes and sizes and creating ripples of varying lengths. Will need to watch them for a while to know.

Utpal Dutt – Another Japanese Coy (JC). Need some good quality sense of humour in the house, considering that Amit’s and mine are pretty rotten.

Dilip Kumar – JC, again. What’s a home without some drama?

Arjun Rampal – Another JC. I thought I needed some macho presence in the pond... to keep Katrina motivated and to stop fights and maintain pond peace.

So that's that. I have christened them now...and I already worry if they don't eat their food. True, I don't need to change nappies. But I still deserve a belated Mother's Day gift. Anybody listening?