St. Anthony

More on matrimonial capers.........

Wednesday was St. Anthony's feast day.....our office accountant a true to the core Christian told me. She exhorted I must pray to the dear Saint this day, he did a lot of miracles in his hey days and one of the miracles was helping a young girl get married. Wow! I thought, now thats seems a easier than searching thru matrimonials, but I ahd to get the method right so I asked her how the miracle took place. This is the story - A young girl kept praying to the saint to find her a suitable husband. After many such prayers and still unmarrried, in anger she picked up the statue of St. Anthony and threw it on the road. The statue went and hit a young man on his head. The repentant girl nursed the young man back to health, both fell in love and eventually got married. Ah! such a sweet love story! Akin to a movie story but neverthless....it worked.
So now how was I gonna make it work for me, for one I hadn't been praying for long. Then two I didn't have statue of the dear Saint and three, throwing on the road and breaking someone's head seemed a bit risky. What if the guy decided to sue me or if it hit a vehicle instead of "the one".

A brief discussion with some of my colleagues followed and they quickly came up with suggestions. The rationale......its a modern world. New world demands new tools. The statue was replaced with a innocuos paper ball ...(people keep throwing that in and out of offices all the time) and for want of choice, instead of one it was decided that 3 would be a better number. I had to feign I was trying to aim it at a non-existent dust bin, in case someone questioned. So there I was with 3 purposefully made balls of scrap paper (one of the colleagues even lended her scrap for the 'authentic' look), waiting for an apportunity to strike.

After much deliberation I threw the first one in air...generally aiming at the passageway where lots of people ourtsiders, guests, visitors walk past. True to Murphy's law where do u think the paper ball landed........right in the dust-bin on the other side which incidentally our 'maushi' had remembered to put back in its rightful place. In all the years that we have worked there, almost everyone has routinely missed the aim to the dustbin (which is seldom in place for that matter), that I had to score now on this most trying ocassion....*sigh*.

Paper ball no.2 in hand.....take a deep breath......shoot...this one I sent way off course. There was little chance of it landing back in the dustbin either since my colleagues having witnessed the whole scene no.1 promptly got the dustbin removed to one of the usual unusual places. This one hit the bat. It landed on the body of a hapless fella walking bye. Aye its a man......lets take a closer look. Yikes....wait I know him.....oh of course....its the labourer who has been coming for the whole last week......to paint our walls.....alongwith with one of his 3 kids and sis-in-law. What a match. Under muffled laughters I quickly mouthed a apolegetic 'sorry' and slinked back into my secure chair. No more throws for me I retire early.

Of course my colleagues weren't goin to let me go that easily. Esp. not an opportunity that sounded so full of adventure and.......laughter (guaranteed guffaws). So they goaded me on....with the last paper ball. Wanting to get it over it as quicklya as possible I tossed the last one into air and didn't even dare turn back and see where it landed. I need not have bothered for the paper ball came back to me alongwith a sound reprimand , a lecture on keeping premises and city clean followed by another stern reprimand for setting a bad example and...wastinng paper. All this from .........no not my boss, even worse, a senior staff from the main department. Sheesh! So much for miracles.

I guess I might as well wait for the responses to my profile.........*sigh*. With apologies to the dear Saint. Adieu!