They call it paranoia

I am suffering from an extreme case of paranoia since the past two days. Today morning for example, I locked my bedroom door from inside, opened my balcony door which connects me to E's room and got out from there. Then I devoted minute attention to little details in the house, like the buckets and toiletry stuff in the bathroom (I shifted them to one our bedrooms), a carton of books (to my room), a carton of cassettes (to E's room), the fridge door and the kitchen door. The latter had a huge padlock hanging on it thanks to me. Now it did look look funny. But look at my other option: Returning home after a weary day of work to see dirty feet marks all over the white kitchen tiles.

No I have not acquired a syndrome over the weekend. We have a few labour hands at our place repairing a leak in one of the loos. It's a mess out there. One Sunday at home, locked inside my room till evening, and I was indescribably worked up. Give them an inch and they would take a yard. One of them happened to ask me, "So you do not cook at home?" I said no and smiled gently. This was obviously taken to be a sign of cow-like gentility. So the next query was, "Your dad's not home?" It called for a snub. And with all the practise I have had in the three years of living away from home, I couldn't have performed better.

The fellows just wouldn't get over with their work. Every 5 minutes
there would be a tap on my door. "We need cold water", "We are going out for lunch", "We need a rag", "We need the gas for burning a rod"... Till I felt like shouting out: "Well, I need you people to get out!" I had it when I caught one of the labourers washing his dirty face and hands in one of our clean buckets. I screamed out : "What the heck are you doing?" The others found it pretty amusing. They laughed at me in a condescending manner which spoke volumes: "She's such a sissy".

Today morning one of them arrived and since S was fast asleep I made
sure the guy wouldn't knock on her door with this and that. So I left a bottle of cold water which obviously wasn't so by the time he arrived. The fool asked me for a bottle of water. I was on the verge of leaving for office. I said, "I left one for you" He smiled benignly: "I splashed it onto the cement". I said coldly, "Very good. Now you can start by bringing your own supply of water." That sure wiped the grin off his face.

And so I have arrived at a conclusion: Some are born rude, some achieve rudeness, and some have rudeness thrust upon 'em. I belong to the last species.