I, Me and dumber Myself

I had an aching posterior, most probably due to the graceful moves associated with slipping on a tiled floor.  After having cursed my inclination towards overdosing the 'Death by chocolate' dessert for my clumsiness, I decided to sleep out the pain.

That's when I had a strange dream where I had a very weird conversation  with a younger, prettier, dumber myself. A ME that was a decade and a half younger....

Me : Hey you look just like me!!

Younger Me : Well duh! I should think so...... I am you, dumbo (followed by an irritating guffaw that had intermittent snorts. I winced, thinking of all the people who knew the Younger Me, and mentally congratulated Me for doing such a good job of Myself!)

Me : WTF!! Then what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be like inside of me or something? I ain't dead or anything am I?

Younger Me: (that guffaw again!..... God! do I laugh like that?) : No you're not dead - for now! But looks like you soon will be!

Me : Ha! You dare advise me? Look at you, you and your silly happy guffaws and your pipeline jeans and your curves and your bloody lovely hair ..... Err.... I mean you with your inexperience, and your hollow existence!

Younger Me : Well, why shouldn't I advise you? Guess who's been making record-breaking embarrassing mistakes just for your benefit? You, however, seem to have an asinine reluctance to learn from them! Do you know how difficult it is to grin stupidly in a roomful of people snickering at you? You do realize that my very existence is questionable if you haven't learnt from my mistakes, right?

Me : No way, dudette! There's nothing you can do that I can't do better!

Younger me : For starters, I can wear spandex - so just shut up and listen. Also, I can laugh at myself ...... can you?

Me : Ha! How hollow! ..... Can you be the super mom that I am? Or the creative mastermind that I am at work? Can you even write an essay without messing up sheets and sheets of paper? Do you even know what a blog is? No match - I told you!

Younger me : Hmmm..... well,  I have a beautiful handwriting, I am told. And honestly, you want to tell me that you prefer punching keys to actually writing? I mean the sound of real pencil on real paper. The joy of discovering that particular pen that fits so perfectly between your index finger and your thumb..... the joy of collecting beautiful pens, the exhilaration when you just changed the refill...... (now looking genuinely surprised)..... you've forgotten all about them, haven't you? (now with an accusing look)

Me (feeling a little uneasy now) : One's got to change with the times. Think of the time it would take me to write all this stuff with a real pen? And use what whitening fluid for corrections? Yuck! Anyway - that's not a big thing! Look at all the stuff I've achieved....

Younger Me : Yeah..... ok. Well, do you have better friends now? I mean do you have the kind of friends I had? The kind who would wake you up in the dead of night to tell you they forgot to wash their clothes tonight and they had to wear it tomorrow, and so you both had to wash it in darkness coz' the landlord would blow his top? No? Well, what about friends who will drop everything to be with you because your dog died? No? Okay I get it! You have friends who would give you the last hundred bucks in their wallet because you had that urgent STD call? Ummmm...... No, huh?

Me : But I have my priorities now! And frankly, this romantic gibberish is far below in my list. Unlike you, I have a house, a car and a career (almost expecting Younger Me to do a 'Shashi Kapoor - Mere paas Ma hai" on me after this!). You didn't think all this just fell into my lap for being a wistful, twenty something with lovely skin, dreamy eyes and long, luscious hair err....... I mean, by being a foolish Utopian, did you?

Younger me : Well, I had more character, you know! Not to mention vivid imagination! Look at you - you watch Shirish Kunder movies!!!!!

Me : Heyyyy! Not fair....that was a mistake - I thought I was going to watch Rowdy Rathore....

Younger Me : Me, Me, Me...... sigh! Now how does that logic make you look any better?

Me : Oh Ok.... that was not the right argument! Anyway, your logic is flawed too. If I was you, I'd be sent to the nearest mental asylum! You laugh like a hiccuping train, you cry when you watch silly stuff like 'Tangled', you smile at absolute strangers, just because you feel 'the sun was nice and bright today', you lend money to people who can't possibly pay you back, you dance 'for the heck of it', you go 'awwwww' the moment you see a stray pup............ you are a certified nut job!

Younger Me : And you? You laugh as though it costs you a fortune! You get embarrassed by emotions - you don't shed a tear even when you know that its the best tribute! You squint and growl at strangers because they delayed starting their car a microsecond too late at a traffic light. You save up for months to buy something of immense monetary value - and yet your happiness does not live beyond a few days, sometimes hours........ Who's the real nut job? (Horrible, horrible laugh again)

Younger Me was a scheming little thing, let me tell you. She used my momentary shock due to the Ravana guffaw, to drive in more irrelevant, irreverent stuff

Younger Me : Do you even remember the last time you laughed while reading a book? No, not that simian show where a cricketer and a man...err...woman...err...I have no clue, sit on a show and laugh themselves senseless on equally tasteless jokes...... but a real book? Or do you remember the last long drive, when you drove to feel the wind in your hair? Or the last time you cooked leisurely, thinking of the reaction when the person you cooked for, saw it?

Rudely woken up by the alarm clock, I was grateful I didn't have to hear that awful laugh again. Ofcourse, I know Younger Me was stupid.......... Right?

(Pic courtesy google images)