The one with the missus's anger

Greetings from the Iyer household. The new year has arrived and brought with it, among all happiness, well-being and joie-de-vivre, a new aspect to ze missus' demeanour, something which was not very apparent till today. It might as well be a new year resolution that the missus might have made which I am not aware of. Not that I am much aware otherwise. It all started with the most innocuous intent of ordering pizza for lunch today. As is the usual practice, the menu selection and ordering is under ze missus' domain. She does that rather well. She has a keen eye for such things. And thus, we went through the menu and finalized the 3 items (including the cheese dip) that we wanted to order. And that's when it happened - something that has not been witnessed in history.

Below is the transcript of the tele-conversation that happened as part of the ordering process.

Attempt 1:

Ze Missus dialled the number. Some network connectivity

Attempt 2:

Directly connected to the customer ordering center. 

ZM (Ze Missus): "Hello, I am Ze Missus. I want to order.. place an order .. "

PP (Pizza Place): "Hello !"

ZM (Ze Missus): "Hello, I want to place an order for a pi.. "

Attempt 3:

The number went to an IVR. Ze Missus disconnected. I thought I could see some lines starting to show up on the brow. I might have been mistaken as well. But, that was attempt 3. And I then offered my phone to continue to ordering process.

Attempt 4:

Directly connected to the customer ordering center.

ZM: "Hello ! I want to place an order for Pizza for mylocation"

PP: "Hello"

ZM: "Hello, yes, I want to place my order"

PP: "Hello ! Hello !!"

A couple of words of exasperation were let out and the next attempt was made. I could see the lines a bit more now.

Attempt 5:

This went to the IVR and we pressed 1 to continue. The rep came online.

ZM: "Yes, I want to place an order"

PP: "May I ask where are you calling from?"

ZM: "Mylocation, Mycity"

PP: "May I have your number and name"

ZM: "The number is xxxx and the name is Ze Missus"

PP: "Please place your order"

ZM: "I would like to have one Peppy Paneer - large. How many pieces will be there in the large pizza"

PP: "Hello. One large pizza? Could you please repeat?"

ZM: "I said, One large pizza. How many pieces in the large one ?"

PP: "Sorry, can you please repeat?"

At this point, I thought I heard something break. Probably just my imagination it was. But the missus had assumed a different avatar altogether now. The usual calm, cute, sweet, all-pleasing tone of her voice had changed to something more wicked. (Alright, that's a bit of an exaggeration there. She is not capable of that. But there was a hint of anger showing up now).

ZM :"This is my fourth attempt to place the order. Are you not able to hear. Can you please check your connection. . Please check you network connection."

The wind had stopped blowing. The leaves on the trees were not swaying anymore. The birds stopped chirping. The solitary dog in the complex was standing still and not barking likely he always does. It all seemed like to be in response to something very much agitated in the nature and in anticipation of something much worse - a deadly storm - to descend upon them. I am sure the Pizza Place felt some heat too.

PP: "I will give you a call back soon."

And then they called back, took the order and promised a delivery in under 30 mins. The storm kind of subsided. Nature took a breath. The wind started blowing again, mildly so at first and then picked up a gentle pace. The leaves started swaying happily once again. The birds resumed their chirping. The dog though was still silent. He, I guess, was the most impacted.

Ze Missus was now back to her normal calm, cute, sweet, all-pleasing self. I have now seen an avatar which I need to be careful against invoking. Apparently some folks in the society had visions of Kali Maa around the same time this episode happened. I don't think that's a coincidence. Last heard around 6 hours after this incident, the dog was slightly regaining his composure. 

Here's wishing me some luck to not invoke this avatar in this new year. Happy New Year !!