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Tanuja Pingali

Comedy Others

5.0  

Tanuja Pingali

Comedy Others

An Idiom For Its Title?

An Idiom For Its Title?

5 mins
846


Meera's dad, Mr. Kumar was an English professor. He used a lot of idioms just to confuse his listeners and have fun. He fussed that nobody used idioms these days. 

Meera's friend Santosh was a simple boy and took a conversation in literal terms. 

One day Meera invited Santosh for lunch at her house. Her father was at home, much to Meera's vexation— she took it in stride having known most of his quirks from all these years.

"Dad! Here's Santosh, you wanted to meet all along."

"Hello, Santosh. How do you do? It has been raining cats and dogs. How did you make it here?" Mr. Kumar exclaimed as soon as he shook hands with the young man.

Santosh was bewildered, "Hi Sir, I'm good. Well, I did not see any cats and dogs fall from the sky. It could be because I drove my brother's car."


Her dad smiled slyly and said, "I think Meera, lunch will be more fun than a barrel of monkeys." 

She was irritated with her father in making Santosh a scapegoat, yet couldn't let out her misgivings albeit Santosh would know.

Mr. Kumar led the unsuspecting Santosh to lunch. All sat down to have their meal as Meera proceeded to serve them.

"I've heard from the grapevine that you have your nose to the grindstone to get that internship?" 

Santosh deciphered that Mr. Kumar wanted to know about his internship, though he was clueless as to what the middle-aged man meant. 

He refrained from asking it, and he proceeded on to describe his internship on how he planned to secure it and finally said, "This internship is very important to me, I have high hopes on securing a job from the same company".


"Don't work so hard dear fellow. I know a friend who burned the candle from both sides and finally popped the cork. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."

"I'm not sure who Jack is, but I assure you I enjoy time off now and then," concluded Santosh with a smug smile to have finally understood what Mr. Kumar had said.

"Meera I think Santosh is making you roll in the aisles," guessed Mr. Kumar. Meera pretended to refill the bowls and went to the kitchen to laugh heartily.

Mr. Kumar felt this was more fun than he bargained for, "How do you get the best of both world's Santosh? And keep your eyes on the ball?" 


Meera tried to save her friend but he answered before she could,

"Oh well, I go for cricket practice every day so it is not that difficult for me to keep my eyes on the ball. Meera I did not know, you told your dad about my cricket. I love this sport." 

She just smiled. She pitied Santosh for he completely missed his wickets despite daily practice.

Mr. Kumar noticed her expression of pity and said, "You know Meera I knew a man who was dumber than this stump and swallowed hook and liner when I fed him with a line."

"Dad, can I have a word with you? Santosh excuse us for a minute."

She dragged her dad off to the next room to reprimand him, "Dad, you are being downright mean to the poor fellow."

"Come on Meera! I did not have so much fun in days, you know, and he is perfect for this role."

"Dad, please don't do this."


Mr. Kumar made no further comment and left the room for her to follow in his wake.

"Now don't let the cat out of the bag Meera," he warned her before settling down to continue his meal.

"Mr. Kumar, it is not such a good idea to have a cat in a bag for whatever reason, it might suffocate and eventually die," remarked Santosh guilelessly. Meera choked on her water.

She recovered in time and said, "I think, Dad, I'm going to blow the whistle on you if you don't stop rocking the boat." 

Santosh looked puzzled at Meera as they finished their meal. She smiled brightly while Mr. Kumar ignored her.


"Mr. Kumar, can you tell me about your work?" asked Santosh. 

"What do you want to know, young man?" 

"How many years have you been working now? How are your students?" 

"So you seem to be an inquisitive fellow. I've been a professor for 27 years now. In this dog-eat-dog world, I have seen all kinds of students. I will give you straight from the horse's mouth on the kind of students I teach. 

"A couple of years ago, we were discussing Hobbies and Pets in class. I encouraged the students to get pets and tend to them. One fellow got an alligator as a pet and thought that it was cat's meow. 


It was only a foot long, so he kept it squirreled away in his dorm. When others joined him, he would monkey around with it, and they would hoof it out of there. He'd just laugh as his pet was all bark and no bite. Within months, his pet grew in size and was now six feet long. 

"Now that's a horse of different colour. He realized his goose would be cooked if college authorities found out. It was time to take the bull by its horn. 

"Late one night, he and his friends wrapped his pet and set him free at the college campus lake. Next day, the alligator was found. It played a cat and mouse game with the authorities and cops. That's where I came in and found out whose mischief it was. 

"The fellow has to eat his crow. He was barking up the wrong tree with me. Finally, he confessed and was suspended for a few months for his actions," summed up Mr. Kumar. 

Santosh's jaw dropped at the end of the story.

He just said, "Mr. Kumar, that's a cock and bulls' story," while taking leave of them. 

Meera was laughing her guts out at Mr. Kumar's expense.


THE END


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