The look!
Monday, July 9, 2007 at 9:05PM Once in a while, I come up with some brilliant ideas. These are not the patentable inventions at work. These are ideas on how to raise children, improve our already flourishing romance, home improvement, purchasing electronic goods that improve the overall morale of the family, etc.
A few of these make it past the idea stage into the realm of reality. The rest get "The Look!", from the wifey of course. Some times there is a LASER effect, where LASER is the Look Amplification by Simultaneous Eyeing of Relative, aka mother-in-law. I have had many an opportunity to take a photograph of the missus giving me the look, but any slight mention of posting such a photo on this blog would get me, you guessed it, "The Look"!
Most married folk seem to understand what I am talking about anyways, photograph or otherwise. The women know what I am talking about because they usually have it in their genes. Even at a young age of four, I can see Jr. practice the look in front of a mirror, trying to move all 323 muscles on her face and sometimes adding a "NO!" with the index finger pointing at her own reflection. No one teaches the girl child "the Look", just the same way no one teaches a baby bird how to fly. They grow up and one fine day find out that the best way to gain complete control of the household is to perfect that stare their mommys flash their daddys. At first they practice it with the "NO" and the threatening finger, but eventually the training wheels come off and the stare alone is enough!
The men, ah, the men! They react differently when talking about "it". The chauvinist pigs deny its existance. The aggressive males utter sounds like "grrrr" or "arrrghh" when confronted with the look, knowing that attempts at whatever they were trying, have reached a premature end. The timid men curl up into the fetal position and put their thumb in their mouth. The average normal male however, puts his head down, wags his head much like a dog wags its tail, and goes back to generating other ideas, for he has figured out that the only way to beat the look is using the law of numbers. Eventually the missus is caught dozing off or is busy watching Abhi's new 685th variation of breaking into tears and the idea is waved through. At this point, the men promptly hit the "Confirm Purchase" button on thier laptops and pray that there is no return policy on whatever they purchased!
As long as you keep persisting, one or two ideas out of a million will slip through the women. Although I paint such a despicable picture of "the Look", it has its advantages. In spite of the ladies perfecting this from such a young age, men let kids play with dangerous things like 9V batteries, cordless drills, plugged in Sowbaghya wet grinders and what not, the consumer electronics industry is posting record profits and Las Vegas hotels get away with charging 250 bucks a night and are always booked to the brim! It is the Look that keeps the healthy balance so that men do not go overboard.
As I am toying with the idea of hitting the "Publish Post" button, I am wondering if the missus sitting across the couch busy at work will suddenly realize that I have posted something, read this and give me .....
.
Reader Comments (9)
kauthuttengala!!!!!!! when you said the look i thought post on sight adikarathu and u writing nostalgic post of ur experiences during college days (i hope you sight adichified, illati paavam saar neenga)
Brilliant Post Sundar.
:-) etho ulla vechundu ezhuthareenga pola?
:) This is so funny. My husband refers to this all the time and there was this episode on 'Home Improvement' which talked about it.
Ah well, silence does speak a 1000 words,hmm ?!
oh yeah no one teaches us the look - ppl used to run away from me when i give the look ;p hehehe
n i used to scare children with the scary look - it works until kid finds out im actually jello in their hands ;p
vatsan : he has post on sight adi ;p
Very funny lol. Do did you get the look?
Lovely !!
Vatsan, Like visithra says, the sight adichchufying is when people are your age and I have no regrets when it comes to my nostalgic youth!
when you are happily married and have a few kids running around, this is the look you get used to..
:)
Judo, Poppins, welcome to this blog..
Munimma, no no NO! (pointing finger at the screen now)..
I did write a paragraph on how the Look has kept the Indian population at bay at just over a billion plus.. and were it not for the Look, it might be at around 10 billion right now.. but to keep the PG13 rating of this blog I deleted that paragraph..but NO..the post had nothing to do with what you mention..
ss.. silence speaks volumes!
visithra, I dont think you can scare people away!
Kavi, thanks!
sundar:
were you a research study http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19713567/wid/11915773" REL="nofollow">participant too? ;-)
btw, my little one practices 'the look' (and the extended forefinger) in front of the mirror too!
- s.b.