A Complete Friday by Aravindh (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud .TXT) 📕

‘Honey, wake up. Its 5.15 already’

The distant voice of my caring wife knocked my ears. My brain realized the dawn few minutes earlier. However, the brains pursuit to signal my eyes to open had worked only after my wife’s caution. I flipped myself few times in the bed and finally got up.

I slowly navigated my way to the bathroom to jump start the day’s routine with the very first task called brush-the-teeth. I can hear that my two Sons are still negotiating for few more minutes of sleep with their mom in the next room. I knew its irrelevant, but I can not avoid flashing memories of my childhood days with similar incidents. My Brother always wins the deal to get more sleep while I just obey my parents like a Computer program booting up once switched on. I splashed the water on my face and felt lot better like everyday after the face wash session rather brushing session or remember-good-old-days session.

I moved to the living room expecting a tea filled cup on the table and today like once in a blue moon days, the tea is half empty. I can obviously conclude my second son got up and he always itch to mess up any one else’s routine. I gave up after many attempts to correct him to brush before he drinks or eats anything in the morning. I slowly started admiring this naughty session and it does not happen every day anyway.

I switched on the news channels to get a brief update on the happenings of the day. I didn’t bother to express my opinion to the folks around. No matter how serious/severe/critical the news are, the inmates of my house would like to discuss it in their free time and definitely not on a busy morning.

‘Good Morning Son. A lovely Friday morning and you should have already made your plans for the weekend. Haven’t you ?’, the graceful voice of the X Service man in the Navy only passed a chill in my spine even when there is nothing to be scared about. He is just back from his morning walk.

‘Of course yes’, My mom who always enjoys bullying me rather supporting the husband.

My whole family is aware of my weekend calendar and how well I plan for it ahead. They enjoy it though as I will include every of them in most of the slots.

‘Can I get a full cup of hot tea please?’, I sounded so formal even in my family. May be I need a long weekend to get the 24 hours office out of me.

‘You can just say informally’, my wife just corrected me. She was always the reaction of my at-the-moment-thoughts. ‘You are right’, I acknowledged. ‘May be we should go for a picnic next weekend’, I giggled. ‘Yayyyyy… Picnic next weekend’, My second son Adrian jumped out of the bathroom and obviously that disturbed the hard earned 10 mins sleep that my elder son Simon was enjoying.

‘No picnic. No Plans’, I Safely negated the kids with out giving any false hopes or unconfirmed plans. The experience in past taught me well enough on how difficult is to convince the kids awaiting an excitement promised by parents. Convincing them now is as easy as Germany winning against England in a football match with Beckham sitting out.

‘Adie, Symo, Go get ready’, my wife rushed up the kids as she took the bathroom for her shower. Its 6.00 AM already. It does not matter if there is any need to get up early or not but we should be disciplined enough and trained hard for a early rise every day. Of course, most of the house holding an X-Service man will agree with me and have to.

Both Adie and Symo are doing their primary 2 and 4 respectively in the same school. The School had a weird 8 AM start to facilitate the students avoid rush hour traffic and reach school early. This, however being a bad news for my kids, suited well for me so I can drop them at school at 8 and reach my office around 8.30 AM.

‘Hey kids, break fast yo.
Yummy pan cakes and strawberries around.
Don’t forget the omelettes, atleast one round.
Proteins, Vitamins don’t bother
Just eat as much, sez……Your father’

I finished with a laugh with my finger pointing myself correlating the last line of my own song. I normally do every crazy attempts it takes to excite my kids and bring up the mood to enjoy the breakfast instead of just eat and leave.

I took the car out of my garage. ‘Get in kids, we are late’, I just lied to hurry up the kids. ‘I know we are not. Dadz gonna take us in a flash’, Adie (a race enthusiast) brought the proud-of-myself-smile out of me.

‘Watch your speed’, my mother took the hint from Adie and passed the diplomatic advice with a worried face. ‘Come on mom… You know I am careful. I never go above 50 with kids around and you know they wear the seat belts all the time don’t you’, I passed my side of justification. After all even I am a kid to my mom.

‘Honey, watch yourself when you are in traffic. Don’t play with children while driving. Kids, don’t disturb dad when he is driving’, my wife was more worried than being harsh. ‘I will get a taxi to the office, I am late already’, my wife murmured to herself and walked to the main road behind our house. I was worried that I couldn’t drop her too but her office is in the other side of the city and i need to start at least an hour ago to drop every day scholars in my home. ‘Love you mom’, my kids were waving to her as she waved back after a min walk from us. ‘Love you darling’, my lips let the word out with out my conscious in a lower volume which even my ears couldn’t hear.


‘Good Morning Sir’, my team mate who reports to me greeted with an everyday early morning smile. ‘Wouldn’t the morning be lovely and better half an hour ago? ’, I sarcastically replied indicating that he is half an hour late to office. ‘May be you should try and make it as a habit and you will be surprised the mornings will be real good’, I further added indicating that this is not the first time he is late. He was quiet shocked to see 9.32 AM in the office clock as he haven’t realized he was too late being under a manager who clocks in an hour earlier consistently every day.

‘You are harsh buddy’, Edward the other department manager approached me with the coffee in his hand after a couple of minutes over hearing my 9.32 AM conversation. ‘I know I am but I couldn’t digest some one consistently late and giving a lame smile for covering it up’, I hate consistently being unpunctual and Edward is aware of it. Edward and me passed out of same university and joined the same company. We both worked hard with the same company all the years gaining the respect and the rewards from top management. Some how I never wanted to think of jumping in to any other company and Edward being a great buddy of mine preferred to stay with me as the company wasn’t bad anyway.

‘Hey, I guess you gonna attend the Teachers meeting today afternoon right?’, Edie questioned as he predicted very well that I never misses any meeting/appointments concerns my kids. ‘Oh yes indeed’, I confirmed. ‘What about you? Are you not going’, I puzzled expecting his presence too as both of our kids are in the same school. Edie’s only daughter Catherine is doing Primary 4 with Simon. ‘Nope, a potential client is visiting us this afternoon. Besides, Cathy is doing well and I thought my wife’s presence will do’, he answered with his workaholic voice. I smiled back acknowledging him. Not that, Edie doesn’t care his family, but he loves his job so much that he leaves most of the decisions on kids to his caring house wife. For some reason I insisted my wife to work as I always thought a working mother is a good source of wisdom for learning kids. Further, I am not too ambitious with my career and always can afford to spend more than enough time for my kids shouldering more care for the kids.

‘Investment banking is not an easy business. We can not let our customer slip away unless there are situations that goes beyond our control’, I took enough pause between sentences to make sure my sentences reached my team of 6 in the cozy conference room. ‘Sir, but this time the situation was really not in our hands’, an aspiring 1 year old rookie justified his inability to hold the customer from with drawing half million dollar deposit. The vibration of my phone interrupted me before I answer and I continued with the phone in hand ‘May be you can elaborate the situation to us’, I gave a quick reply to keep him occupied with a speech for next 5 mins to my team. ‘Excuse me, I will be back in a minute. Please carry on with the explanation’, I instructed the rookie and came out of the room by answering the call.

‘I told you not to call me when I am in office’, I yelled at low volume to my mom in the other end. ‘I know. But I just got the phone call from the hospital. They postponed your dad’s 1 o clock Dentist appointment to 2 o clock due to emergency situation and I thought its better to let you know so you can plan accordingly. ‘Oh ok. I guess should not be a problem, Symo’s school meeting is at 3 and I think I can finish up both together’, I answered with a happy tone as I was worried on how to manage the appointments in extreme timings. Now, the hospital dudes sorted it out.

‘Am going down for Lunch. You wanna join?’, Edie questioned peeping his head inside my room through the door. ‘Nope. Just buy me a Chicken Teriyaki burger from Subway with a fresh skimmed milk’, I answered. ‘Wazzup man? Caught with work?’, Edie was puzzled. ‘Got to leave around half one to pick my dad to dentist and later to Symo’s school. You know that. So I don’t have much time’, I pointed my watch. ‘Oh ok sir’, Edie replied.’Hey I will be coming to the School meeting too at 3 catch you there’, Edie signaled that we both can get back together to office in my car. Edie is always awful with his planning and keep changing it every often. ‘Hey you said there is a client meeting’, I was curious. ‘Ya, the client wanted to meet for dinner tomorrow, so I thought I can finish up the school thing when I could’, Edie sounded like the next top business tycoon. ‘Cool. Am gonna drive anyway to school so make sure you get a cab to school and we both can get back together’, I gave an immediate plan. ‘Ok super planer’, Edie left the door yelling and embarrassing me further.

‘Dad, how is your diabetes now? Shall I book for another check up next week?’, I asked dad with strong voice while waiting