I was trying to relax in the afternoon and grab my forty winks – or maybe forty thousand of them to counter my jet lag when I heard my dad calling out my name from where he was sleeping. I put my glasses on and went to his room and asked “Ki holo?” (What happened?).

Well. “ki holo” is this: He had woken up and gotten himself to sit up to register a severe complaint to me about my mom. First he asked me if I had checked out the new cushions mom had gotten made for two of the outside chairs. I replied in the negative. Upon his encouragement, I went to the outside patio (which is where I spend endless hours in the morning and evening) and found that the two standard chairs had two spanking new cushions. Not sure where this was leading to, I took a picture of the chairs and came back to his room.

“Did you see the cushions?”, he asked.
“I did. What is the big deal?”

Well here apparently was the big deal:
A couple of weeks back, Mom got the cushions made. The following day, my dad had ostensibly dragged himself out of the bed and at a slow pace, eventually made it to the outside patio (about ten feet away) and plonked himself down in one of the chairs. Only to be rudely awakened by Mom who had run from the kitchen, yelling at him to get off from the chair. My dad, thoroughly confused, struggled to get up using his walking stick and asked “Ki holo” (no more translations required).

Apparently, mom took the cushions away and asked him to sit down.

“Cushion gulo to bosbar jonno-i baaniyechho”, he told mom. (I thought you made the cushions for people to sit down on).
“Tomar jonno noi. Bachchu esey bosbey”. Looks like mom summarily dismissed him mentioning that she got the cushions made specifically for me to sit down when I come home.

My dad’s expression says it all – “What did I do wrong”???

Ah! Once a mom, always a mom, I say!