(Pass)words fail me!

Have I ever told you that most of my problems arise because of the missus? Well, they do!

- K.C. VERMA

You see, I had a moustache. One that I had fondly kept since last year. Nothing spectacular. Not like Salvador Dali or Hercule Poirot. Not even like Terry-Thomas. It was an unambitious and unremarkable moustache—lying on my upper lip like a fat, contented caterpillar. For some obscure reason, the little woman got it into her head last month that I did not look dashing enough with that moustache.

“At my age I don’t want to look dashing,” I said in my defence.

“Okay,” she said, “By all means, don’t look dashing. But at least try not to look stupid! And that thing on your face makes you look terribly stupid. So just shave it off!”

She kept badgering me until I finally shaved it off last Sunday.

I felt quite naked without my moustache. Nevertheless, I would have been satisfied with the Nunc et situ, provided the missus was satisfied for Nunc et semper. But she was not!

“I think you look more stupid without the moustache,” she said offhandedly at bedtime.

The matter would have ended there, and, in due course, I would have grown my caterpillar again. But life is seldom as simple as we naively think it is, because Monday morning brought with it its share of surprises. The milkman saw me and burst out laughing. The maid came and for the two or three hours that she pretends to do the chores, she kept giggling silently.

The worst was still to come. When I decided to work on my magnum opus that afternoon, my laptop refused to recognise me!