Mimi and the toddler
Mimi is a middle aged independent modern individual— if there is any such thing. She is exactly where she wants to be with whom she wants to be wearing what she desires and eating as she pleases. She grew up in love and support, she married into love and respect. A middle aged independent modern individual is a funny thing. There is a gap in the things she wants and in the things she is supposed to want and she knows it. This knowledge puts Mimi in hilarious dilemmas which may seem like she is perpetually discontented but she is not — at least not perpetually.
In this imagined reality, I am going to explore some events through Mimi’s eyes and hopefully, it will turn that frown upside down.
It was a visit to a friends house when the universe conspired against Mimi and kept her away from a conversation. The house was shiny and new and the owners were mighty proud of their feat. As they should be — its not a joking matter to buy a 5-room house in Singapore. Mimi with her life partner was admiring and congratulating the newly minted owners when it happened. Mimi found herself being ‘kid’napped to another house viewing. She was helpless against the kidnapper who was the most seasoned, the most manipulative, and the most persistent thing. And suddenly when the mask lifted, she found herself alone in the room with the Toddler! Oh the terror! She might have imagined it but she heard the Toddler saying, “ Well well well… look who is here… if its not the woman who made me cry so that we left her house! At last we meet again and I shall have my revenge!”
You see, it was not the first time that Mimi had come across this particular toddler. The last time, Mimi was made to play barber and customer for a billion times — getting her (already thinning)hair pulled, getting dirty carpets thrown on nice clothes, getting jumped manically all over the body — did I mention for a billion times? After one billion and one times, she was done. She threw the dirty towel on the toddler, made her cry, and subsequently made her leave.
So this time, with a small remnant of the guilt, Mimi extended her hand for a truce, and in retrospect that was her downfall. She got sucked in a tale of mama bear, baby bear, doll houses, and monsters. Mimi could hear the adults talking in the living room. It seemed very far away, a bitter reminder of what she had lost, her poor choices in life. They were talking about work cultures in their offices and across the globe — how nice would it be if only she could join in, listen in, weigh in. After an eternity, she thought she had repented just enough and decided to hatch an escape plan and catch the last bit of the adult conversation. After all in this room, she was the adult with much more capabilities, better read, and taller than her captor. But all of her reading was in vain — as none of them came to her rescue — the Dickenses, the Oscal Wildes, Jane Austens, the Rowlings, none of them could give a clue about how to stop the vicious circle of the monster coming for the bear family every night and the bear family escaping only to be caught by the monster the next night.
Then it came — finally out of no where Mimi blurted, “ This night Mama bear has eaten her spinach and fish, so she attacked the monster and destroyed him!! Look, there is his dead body! THE END” . The Toddler was thrown off her curve. She blinked. There was silence for a while and then apparently the baby fell into the toilet, the toilet broke, so she wedged a stick in it and suddenly Mimi found herself staring at something called “toilet ice cream”. That was it. Mimi stormed out of the room and made her way to the adult conversation that had eluded her all this time, her reward for the repentance.
She was free! Now she could talk about work, and culture, and different co-workers, and managers. She could talk about their trip to Bangkok, their upcoming trip to Egypt. So she joined in the conversation to talk about how she was lucky as she got a good team to work with. Her dream of being a part of the adult conversation was shattered immediately. The Mother said, “So Toddler, ask aunty (Mimi) when can she(Mimi) get her(Toddler) a little sister to play with?”
Mimi could not catch the elusive conversation. The adult conversation could not be caught.
