Author: Swati

I love reading food reviews. They offer some simplicity in the overwhelming world of culinary experimentation and ubiquity. I wasn’t as much of a fan as I am now. 

Since the pandemic struck and stopped the world, my love of eating out has been affected by paranoia. My risk appetite has reduced drastically. I no longer walk into a restaurant and hope the food is good. 

I research beforehand and decide on which joint to go to, primarily based on reviews. It is not foolproof, I must admit – but on average, that approach has burned me less number of times than simply walking into restaurants randomly.

So, I went to this cafe the other day; the reviews were decent. I placed an order before I had my ass touch the chair.

They filled in water at my table right away – check

They took little time to serve coffee and snacks – check.

The waiter came to check everything was good with my food – check

The coffee and food were good quality – check

Ambiance – check.

I was a happy camper – out and out. We had a great long chat – my friend and I. I also took that as a good sign, especially considering the depth of the conversation we had. 

I say so because I have been known not to be able to manage anything, even close to that, on an empty stomach. Things were working out nicely.

All that drinking and eating and chatting for two long hours was bound to lead to nature’s call. So naturally, I asked the waitress where the restrooms were. 

What followed was a series of seemingly complicated instructions. I only registered the words – lock, code, basement, elevators, and hallway. I felt stupid asking her twice. So I set out on a hero’s journey – how difficult could it be?

The first thing I did was go close to the elevators. Only because that’s the first thing I saw from the list of words that I could register. 

Then I looked around to see if a door or a hallway could take me to one. Serendipitously, the hallway ended at the door. And good for me, it was not locked. So I open it and find a flight of stairs down. 

The word basement came to mind. I walk down the flight of stairs and find another door. I open it, and bam! Janitor’s closet!

Wasted effort, I thought to myself and seeing that I have reached a dead end, I had no choice but to walk back up.

The idea of going up the flight of stairs to look for another door was daunting, having already established my top-notch listening/navigation skills. Going back and asking the waitress would expose how stupid I was to the waitress and my date. So, that was not an option. 

The only other option is to clear the payment and run, like Forrest Gump, back to my apartment…where the washroom door is NOT LOCKED to a code.

I was reading a short story by O. Henry the other day- one where he talked about an expert thief. No safe in the world was immune to his talents, thanks to his excellent skill and expert toolbox. What a satisfying feeling it must be to have that power! 

And to be very frank, I even daydreamed about me having that someday. Not to unlock any safe. Nope, I have no interest in that. 

My reasons come from a relatively basic need – the need to be able to get into my apartment and my car. I would want that skill just so I would never have to worry about losing my keys, which I manage to do at least once daily. 

I could probably develop AND follow a mechanism to not lose them, the same way Mr. Henderson could have a cat.

OR, I can learn how to pick locks.

It wasn’t always the same, you see. We had quite a relationship – the lock, key, and me.

As a little kid, keys were quite a mystery to me. Came in all shapes and sizes, with different incisions and different hues of shiny metallic color. What was not to like? I looked at them in wonder and amazement. I knew that the day my mum let me hold one would be an unforgettable day of my life. It was years before I got to use them. I would beg my mum to let me open the locks. I would run up the stairs as if being chased by someone and get my dopamine dose of the day by click and clack of locking and unlocking.

Keys were lots of fun. Until I became accountable for them.

Fast forward a decade, I hated the sight of them – or the lack of them. 

I would lose my keys almost every day. If I would ever find them, they’d be at the most obscure locations, thanks to a dreadful combination of my absent-mindedness and multitasking. Sometimes inside the freezer, the trash can, the fruit bowl, and the, worst of all, the back pocket of my pants! 

“There has to be a solution to this madness,” I often thought.

There are only so many times I can keep going to the same locksmith to remake my keys before he concludes I am a thief or reports me clinically insane.

And that’s where the aspiring lockpicker persona takes over. I can learn to pick locks. Youtube has everything. How hard could it be? 

Almost everyone in all the TV shows, or even movies, with anything to do with theft / breaking in requires some lock picking. Come to think of it, Never having to worry about where I kept (forgot) my keys is too damn titillating to ignore. 

How hard could it really be? 

All they seem to need is a hairpin, a metal wire, or even a dental floss, all of which are easy enough to keep in my purse. That and a good DIY, and I am good to go.

It turns out I overestimated my skill again. If I couldn’t keep my keys in my purse, how could I imagine that I would remember to keep the wire, the hairpin, and the floss in the purse, either?

No DIY instructions can save me, even if I can follow them, which is a reach. GPS keys are going to take some time to come. And I need to find a way to survive in the meantime.

How about moving to a lock and key-less Mars?

Does the post title bring back memories of Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey starrer “How to lose a guy in 10 days”? The first I heard of the movie might have been a couple of decades ago, And I remember thinking to myself, why would someone want to do that? 

I was naive at the time. Also, the movie didn’t do much justice to the title, seeing that both the characters eventually achieved the opposite of what they set out to.

Back to losing a song. That is way easier. All I have ever done to make that happen is to hear it on replay 100 times. 

Depending on how desperate you are to get it off being your earworm and how lengthy the song is, you could accomplish it in less than a day. If you don’t want to go cold turkey and have some mercy/respect for your ears, you might want to space it out over 3-4 days. 

I have learned over years of experimenting with this technique that the former works better. If you give your brain some rest, it will make hating the song a slower process. Your ears will thank you for choosing that option, though. 

Now, someone might very well ask the logical question(s):

“Why do I even have to do that? What does it matter that I am addicted to a song? Why can’t I listen to it as many ever times as I want… the last I knew, this was a free country.“

And they’d be right. This article is probably not for people in the last category. The article post is for people desperate to escape the grip of their earworms- whatever the cost. 

You will find a variety of explanations out there as to why that happens – in literature, neuroscience, economics, and philosophy. These are everywhere. Here are a few: 

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder” ergo… constant presence does just the opposite?

I know I am probably reaching now, but even the Maxwell distribution curve, which describes the behavior of gas particles, could be leveraged to understand this human tendency. 

With time, we develop an immense admiration for something and then comes a peak, a maxima of the feeling, and then it gradually decays with time. Happens with almost every feeling that we have.

“Law of diminishing marginal utility from economics.”

Simply put, as consumption increases, the marginal utility derived from each additional unit declines.

But the best of all comes from the great science of living the good life. And from the stoic of all stoics – Epictetus.

If one oversteps the bounds of moderation, the greatest pleasures cease to please.

Ironically, I stumbled upon this famous quote while listening to a song I wanted to get rid of.

You ask an average adult what they would do if they came upon a windfall gain, call it the lottery, for example, the answers you would get, unsurprisingly, will be very limited – buy a big house, pay off all mortgages, travel the world, get a Porsche 911, buy a helicopter, buy a private jet, etc. 

Travel the world, in my experience, appears on almost 

everyone’s list. Mine too.

The minute I hear a travel plan is in the works, I immediately register the emotions of excitement, anticipation, and happiness. 

Dread doesn’t take long to knock at the door, though. 

No thanks to motion sickness!

For those of you lucky enough not to know what that is, here’s a little google love for you:

“Motion sickness occurs when your brain can’t make sense of information sent from your eyes, ears and body. Lots of motion — in a car, airplane, boat, or even an amusement park ride — can make you feel queasy, clammy or sick to your stomach. Some people vomit. Being carsick, seasick or airsick is motion sickness.”

You can see why it can convert the exciting world of travel to something quite the opposite for people suffering from motion sickness. 

A seemingly harmless road trip in an air-conditioned car can quickly become the ‘Remember-the-night-you-puked-your-lungs-out?’ 

Even an idyllic evening of swinging in the park can make for an awful experience. 

I know some folks who have gotten it much worse than me. But of course, I wouldn’t compare my situation with theirs. Where’s the fun in that? I will compare my case with those of the people who have got it all going for them, i.e., those who don’t have this freaking ailment.

Now, I didn’t know that I had this problem until high school- where one day, on a school trekking trip 2 hours away, revealed to me and to my dear friend sitting next to me the joys of motion sickness. Her shining new shoes and uniform got the worst of it. 

I will spare you the graphic details, but it took me a few months to get back to being able to talk to her again. Puke doesn’t look good on shiny shoes, you know.

After researching a lot and going through many remedies, I have found some that help me combat some of the effects, but my journey still needs constraints. I can not read on my trips, whether by road, sea, train, or plane. All the classics that I thought I would read on my trips somewhere. 

Thankfully, I can listen to music without feeling pukish, which helps with short trips. 

Guess the people who said ‘every cloud has a silver lining’ weren’t wrong. I have realized that the same motion that makes me puke, also easily lulls me into sleep if I let it. 

Lo and behold! My average sleep hours of 8 hours a day immediately increase to 8.067387 hours a day. I tell you, every extra minute of sleep helps. 

You know well what I mean if you are one of those people that specialize in waking up at the last minute every morning.

My love for travel has not diminished, despite the constraints, the journey might bring. My only gripe is with the people that said – enjoy the journey, not the destination.

They surely didn’t suffer from motion sickness.