Some cents(sense) for an instinct!!!

Today would have been just another usual day for us - get up early in the morning (I meant 8:30 am; my definition of early means till noon), quick ablutions, get running to the office, be back by evening, play some tennis weather permitting, else self made food and retire. It sometimes can get on to your nerves. Life follows such a predictable trajectory that I can define my weekdays for the next ten weeks easily. The pattern has injected such an expected response, that any deviation, even if slightly from normal, soothes us to no end. Oh! That was something different for the day!

Late in the evening, after dinner, I had this incredible urge to try out a sundae at one of the ice cream parlors in Reading. I am basically an ice cream freak and love to try it out at various places. We had tried to go to this place on one of the weekends and found it closed. It was more of a loose statement directed at Sameer, my roommate, "Come on, why not go to Reading, let's try out the ice cream there!" I was expecting a not so enthusiastic response from him. "Come on GK, it is already too late. Forget it!" But to my surprise, he too was pretty eager to get ourselves moving to the place. So, we decided to call the third member of the trio, Chetan to accompany us. It was in fact, Chetan, who had suggested us this place sometime back. So, off we went at about 8:30 PM taking the nearest exit to get to the ice cream parlor. As we entered the complex, we(Sameer and I; Chetan has been here earlier) were totally impressed with the setting. The ice cream parlor is housed in a big complex, and there was this musical fountain playing out to different tunes in different colors. It was a totally impressive setting. I took my sundae while the other two helped themselves with smoothies, and stood near the fountain, chatting away to glory. It was a perfect place to spend a romantic evening with your better half, but here we were three of us, with no other alternative! At the fountain base, we could see a lot of coins of different denominations. Suddenly, out of the blue, Chetan lets out a statement "GK, if you throw some money into the water, you will get the perfect girl." My initial reaction was an instant dismissal; all of us let out a sigh but then somewhere in the corner of my mind, I had a second thought. Once I had the second thought, I was sure I was not taking any chances. There you go, I am throwing a cent(well, that was the coin that my fingers could find in the wallet) in the water. The other two were obviously dumbstruck for a second, and then the three of us had a good laugh. But, then I was quick to tell the other two. "Guys, if you want the perfect girl, you better throw a cent(not any other coin) in the water." Both of them gave out a broad grin, pulled out their wallets, and found the solitary cent to throw it into the water. At the end of the exercise, all the three of us burst into a hearty laugh. "Wow, we are not taking any chances with this!!"

We just realized that come what may, there are certain things in life for which you tend to be superstitious. The cents in the water may not mean a thing, but with some strings attached, it takes a different meaning altogether. As humans, we tend to follow our heart very well knowing that it does not mean a thing. Well, well, well, wait a minute? Does it really mean something?