"Sambar" Corner

Yeah.. The Sambar Specialist is back with his regular CUROOMIES story telling!!!
Calls himself Foobar here.. Another nice one..

Foobar hugged his sack of clothes close to his body and walked briskly. It was a cold night in November of 2004 and the temperature outside was in low thirties. Foobar worked in his lab till midnight on his research project and returned home to get some food. He then remembered that he had to go do his laundry that night. Absolutely had to.

"Any of you interested in coming with me to laundry?” asked Foobar hesitantly. The laundry was 5 blocks away. Walking all the way alone with a 20 pound bag of dirty clothes and returning home by 4 AM is not exactly a sweet job.

"Not me. I'm good for a week at least", answered other roomies.

"Alright", sighed Foobar and started packing clothes. After a quick dinner, he trudged along the 125th Street of Manhattan towards Broadway. This street stretches along all major avenues of Upper Manhattan and is usually busy all day and night. NYPD cars frequent all by lanes of the neighborhood after dark, and Foobar had no reason to feel insecure. But chill was unpleasant. Foobar had little choice but to do laundry at unearthly hours. No grad student uses his 'useful' morning hours for something as worthless as laundry work.

As Foobar walked round the bend, he sighted a television. A flurry of thoughts came to his mind. And the first of them was - 'ugh! What an unsightly thing on the road'. But that was not all. Foobar had been in the United States for just about two months at that time. Money was hard to come by. Rents were expensive and the house he lived in, along with 5 other fellow countrymen was not exactly... a warm cozy burrow, lets say. And it was the wont of many new students to pick up nice looking articles and furniture off the road and move them home. Disgracefulness? Destitution? Call it what you want. Even Foobar, a few months prior to his journey to the West would've expressed disgust at something like that. But time changed everything.

At that point in time, the roomies had one sofa, a chair and a king size bed at home - all picked up off the streets of Manhattan. They had friends who had picked up microwave ovens, wooden shelves, wardrobes and cots of the streets. Everyone seemed to do that.

So anyway, Foobar's house lacked entertainment gadgets, save a wizened old desktop computer given away free of charge from New York University. Foobar gazed at the television for a moment. It looked okay and clean - with a tall base attached to it. If it worked well, it'd be a good thing to have at home. Thus far, the roommates used to beat stress by listening to songs off a popular Bollywood portal. Half an hour of television every night before sleep would be nice.

Suddenly, Foobar felt bad. Maybe he couldn't afford to buy a television, but it'd be better to do without one, rather than get trash into the house. It somehow didn't feel good. 'We have got enough already from the streets. Forget it!’ thought he and continued to the Laundromat.

A couple of hours later the clothes were washed. Foobar slung his laundry bag on his back and started walking back home. As he neared home, he saw the television still lying there.

'Take me! I'll work like nothing that you know of!’ it seemed to entice.
'Sigh'.

Foobar reached home. The roomies were still awake. If ever they tucked in before 3 AM, they'd lie awake in the bed,- wondering why they're not able to get sleep. Foobar casually mentioned that there was a TV just around the bend.

Silence.
"Should we get it?” asked One.
"Hmmm... I dunno", said Foobar.
Silence.
"Lets just go and check it out", popped Second.
Silence.
"Okay". Four of them at home pulled jackets over and walked out onto the street. Cold winds greeted them. Soon, they all stood around the television.

"This looks cool, actually", said One.
"Lets try moving it", suggested Foobar.
"Two should be enough to get it home. Lets try it out, and if it doesn't work, lets just throw it out", said Third.

Foobar and Second grabbed the bottom of the machine and lifted. At least, that's what they looked like they would do. But the gadget turned out to be surprising heavy! Foobar held the bottom and pulled with all his might. The television rose millimeters above the ground.

'Holy Cow!', exclaimed all. 'This needs four full people', announced First. And they all lent their hands. The television was about hundred meters away from home. It took the four of them at least 20 minutes to slowly turn and push and (sometimes) lift the beastly thing till the front door. They were all panting and gasping and muttering at the end of it.

“‘Let’s do the final leg up the stairs now", announced the Third and they all groaned. The apartment they lived in was only three floors high and did not have an elevator. They had a narrow flight of steps all the way up to their apartment on the second floor. "Okay, you're lean. You go up with First", said Second to Foobar. Second and Third started pushing the television from its south side and Foobar and the First started pulling it up from the top.

One flight of steps and the First warned - "If this does not work, I'll throw this right out of the second floor window, or break Foobar's leg". The roomies finally moved the mammoth electronic up the two flight of steps, damaging the wall in two places and the Second getting a gash on his right palm, brushing against a wooden wedge at the bottom of the television. The guys soaked in sweat in that cold night and collapsed on a sofa in the living room. Might I say that sofa was picked off the streets too, but I do not wish to digress here. It was almost the wee hours of dawn by then.

"Whew... okay, lets connect the thing and see TV for a few moments at least". The Second was enthusiastic. The electronics engineer of First ran a pilot check behind the TV and straightened a few cables out.

"Oh no!" said he. "This doesn't have a proper power cable". "No worry, I'll fix that", said Fourth. After a few moments of re-wiring, the TV was good to go. "Alright people! Take a deep breath. I'll switch this on. We don't have a remote, but that's okay. We'll push buttons on the TV a la 1980s style!", exclaimed First. Power On.
Beep... and a thin white very bright line appears in the middle of the TV.

All waited for a full minute, not uttering a word. "I have worked on CRTs and like during my undergrad", said Second. "Do you know what that means?" "No". "The CRT of the TV is busted. We are all staring at a piece of horse shit, expecting to see HBO movies", said he, helpfully. "Okay". Curses followed.

Mostly on the wretched owner of the television who had left it within the sight of the roomies. Why couldn't he have kept that junk in his house or thrown it into the garbage truck directly!

The television remained in the living room as an eye sore for weeks. One fine night, Foobar came home late and saw only the First awake in the house. "I've had enough of this piece of junk. Let’s throw the damned thing out", said Foobar. "Only two of us?" "Yeah, let’s do it, whatever happens". And the First and Foobar slowly and painfully pushed, nudged, lifted and slid the behemoth down the two flights of stairs. It turned out to be exceedingly difficult - much more than lifting the thing upstairs.

After about half hour effort and one dangerous moment of the television sliding wrathfully down the stairs on Foobar, the television was back on the street. The two turned it towards the garbage area, gave it a vengeful kick and returned back home. Their limbs ached. But they slept happy men.

Next morning, the rest of the roomies were overjoyed to see the living room much prettier than what it was the previous night. Eagerly, they looked out to see if the pest was lying around near the door. It wasn't there anymore. Had someone else borne the burden into their home? The roommates will never know. But we sadistically wish something like that happened...