Sunday, November 9, 2008

You Can't Change An IT Pro

Setting: Kitchen table Edison, NJ...A conversation between an IT pro/coder from Small Town, T.N., India who managed to cross the 7 seas in 1999 by doing a course in C++ from Aptech, Small Town, T.N., India and his wife also from Small Town, T.N., India but with a fondness for the good things in life...

Wife: Ooof!!! I'm sick of making dosas, sambar and idlis every day... We never eat out or go out for movies or anything...We never have fun...My life is all about shopping for groceries, cooking, and cleaning...I never get a break...And then there is the 20 year old Chevy that you've bought me...Do you know how difficult it is to load it with sacks of rice and dal from Orchard Road and drive it back to our house? The car just doesn't move...I don't know why I married you...

IT pro (looking up from the latest edition of Tanilians Abroad): What are you complaining about? Don't I earn enough money to house,clothe and feed you? After all, I brought you here, to the land of milk and honey...You should be grateful to me for that...If I hadn't married you, you would still have been in that godforsaken town...And just think of the money we save by buying food in bulk...

Wife: But we never enjoy the money...You get your kicks by just looking at your monthly bank statement...What's the use of earning money if you don't enjoy it?

IT pro : Woman, listen to me...Life is not about having fun - it is about making ends meet and saving money...
(Then softening a bit)
I have an idea...Why don't we go have lunch at the $5.99 all-you-can-eat South Indian buffet down the road?

The wife is not very happy about eating idlis and dosas in a restaurant but agrees to the suggestion as it would mean going out

At Malabar Restaurant, Edison, NJ

Waiter: Sir, what would you like - a-la-carte or buffet?

IT pro: Buffet, please...But since my wife has a stomach virus she won't be eating so charge me only for one buffet...

Wife (angry): What do you mean by I'm not well? I'm perfectly fine and famished!!!

IT pro: Listen, it's an all-you-can-eat buffet so I'll get food on my plate for the both of us...Why should we pay for two when we can both eat by paying for one?