Nerve Endings Firing Away

The entire Christmas festive atmosphere messed up my brain and made me do the unthinkable, at least in my parents’ minds. I bought them gifts and shipped it to them in a shoebox, duly packaged in brown paper courtesy the usually-reliable USPS. Now it has almost been a month and they haven’t received it yet. Initially I did not want to mention that I had sent something least they consider it to be emotional bribery and of course to maintain the levels of surprise that I am usually not capable of.

Gods had other plans in mind. Ultimately when they did not call to tell me how happy and pleased they were upon receiving the surprise, I openly asked them if they had received a parcel, without alluring to size or contents. Equally surprised, they claimed they had not. I blamed the holiday season and penchant of the Indian Postal Service to misplace parcels, especially those that come from “fooren”. My capitalistic brain did not, for an instance, think that it might be a mess-up on part of USPS.

In the light of all these missed opportunities, I get a call from my dad, happily announcing that he has received an unclaimed parcel notification in his email. My spirits lift up for a solitary second and sink right back when I realized that I never had given an email address. My dad however is over the moon when he scolds me for sending such expensive gifts.

The stingy curious me, I asked him what was listed. He rattled off a dream list of electronic gadgetry that could be easily passed off as Bill Gates weekend shopping spree. Topping the list was a Sony 61″ Digital Projection TV and Apple G5 PowerBook, Canon Digital Camera, followed by equally impressive top-of-the-line products. Now, let me get one thing straight. In my present financial condition, I cannot own 61″ of anything, let alone a projection TV.

Somewhere deep down, even my dad knew that and thankfully called me before trying to claim that “unclaimed parcel”. Upon further inquiry and speaking over my dad’s excited voice, I found out that it was merely a spam email since it requested a payment of $30 to confirm delivery, much like the Nigeria bank account scam. I could almost hear my dad’s disappointed sigh.

My teeny-weeny parcel is still missing and even if they receive it in couple of days, I don’t think they are going to be half as excited. Sigh! A projection TV! Life certainly has its share of laughs at my expense.