But(t) of course, I need to reduce !

But(t) of course..you need to reduce!

Back from an overseas trip

Feeling good to be home

savouring my morning tea, reading the paper

I heard her say “you need to do something”

Frantic, i racked my brains

Did I forget something she had told?

No, there’s nothing such, I re- assured myself

Even as I heard her say..”your midriff needs more work”

She told me to remember my college days

How we sat on imaginary chairs

While seniors ordered us around

To enact our roles in the ragging
rites

“Well “, I said, “I still can do it”

“But who is ragging who?” I asked

“No ragging here but yes, you have to do it

To reduce the ample waist of 53 years!”

It seems she read somewhere

That sitting such and then some moves

Would reduce my waistline well enough

To knock off a couple of years from my looks

Game for it, I sat on the chair

Creaky though it was imaginary

What next? I looked
askance at her

“Stretch your hands”, she said so firm

Stretch my arms, I did so prompt

Precarious became my perch on the chair

Then, she said, “stretch your legs”

At that precise point her cellphone rang…

Running, she went to
fetch her phone

Stretch I did, all of both legs

The blindly obeying hubby that I am

Thud!!! I landed hard
on my rump

I write this from my wooden bed

With no mattress, but
a pillowed butt

My back aches, my butt screams

Why oh why did I do
it to me???

Right since morning the debate is on

Did she say “leg” or did she say “legs”?

Whatever she said, here I am

Nursing my sore ego and butt as well.