~~ [Post 8] - I Scream, You Scream? ~~

So, I did a self introduction post sometime back in which I covered most of the goody-goody aspects that define me. However, I had not covered my annoying traits, they define me as much as those goody-goody aspects. Let me try to shed some light on one of such inbuilt embarrassing annoying quality 

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

I am scared of a lot of things. A LOT.

Ghosts, horror movies(I still watch them), darkness, eerie sounds, flying cockroaches, dogs, cats, well, any animals as such, loud noises, well, a lot many more

And whenever I get scared, I scream. Annoying loud screams.

I know, you may think, screaming is just natural when you are scared, what’s so special about it? But then, you haven’t heard me scream, and you haven’t been in the circumstances where I scream  I am “that” good at screaming. If there is a contest deciding who screams best when they are scared, I will win, and then faint or maybe die, but win I will.

My brother has had absolute fun all through our childhood, scaring the living daylights out of me, with literally anything that he can think of at that moment. I must say, its a miracle that his eardrums are intact. Sometimes, all he had to do was pretend he held a cockroach in his hand, and chase me with a closed fist, and the house would reverberate for a very long time with my ear splitting screams. My mom would always find me later, either on the top of dining table (I dont know why I used to climb on top of the table, because my brother could very well reach me there) or in my securely-locked no-entry-for-anyone-especially-brother-though-I-share-it-with-him room. If its one person who has heard me scream the most, its my brother, and most of those screams, were because of him. Brothers are sometimes plain evil, no?  

I am so good at it that, once upon a time, not very long ago, I was titled “Screaming Girl” by folks who resided in one of the longest lanes in my hometown. Those were the days when we did not have a bicycle of our own until we had perfected the “balance”. We used to rent bicycles from a shop (yes, there used to be such shops where we could rent a bicycle at 1 Rupee per hour, no I am not that old, its just a few years back, really, pinky promise) to learn and to practice and only once we were pro enough to ride one, a bicycle would be bought at home. I had just learnt to ride a bicycle (which in itself was one big event in our lane) and so during the immediate summer vacation, when we went to my hometown, my grandma’s place, I and my two cousin sisters, who lived in that very town and who had also just learnt how to ride, started this daily routine of going to the town’s cycle shop, renting 3 cycles and practicing diligently in playgrounds or less populated streets or long lanes. I wanted a lady bird pink bicycle (which BTW, I never got, more of it later in some other post) and I was determined to be perfect at riding a bicycle, by end of the vacation.

Now these chotu tiny cute bicycles had these cute little triiiing triiing ringing bell, for us to alert anyone who would block our way. But, that just didn’t work, atleast for me. I mean it would function alright, the shrill triiiiiiiiiiiing triiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing would blare alright. But the concept of using it to alert anyone just didn’t work for me. I would start pedaling as graciously and as slowly as possible, and the very next moment, I would have bumped into someone (now, I should mention, that the someone would actually be where they should have been, say, on a footpath, its just that I would have managed to miraculously turn the bicycle handle in their direction and then bumped into them – No – I wouldn’t have driven on the road at all, but would have managed to steer away from it towards the unsuspecting people, talking to each other, standing near their house, totally unaware of a small girl pedaling directly towards them) and then after they had fallen or saved me from falling, I would furiously ring the bell. Late reaction, I know. So, well, the bell thingy was not working and I definitely had the balance, so, the only problem to be able to be ready for my new lady bird pink bicycle were these people who seemed to block my way, ahem, they were just literally everywhere.

After a few failed attempts to drive on the road, I improvised to make use of the powerful gift that I had. The Scream. So, you would find me, riding furiously to and fro, on the single long lane, literally everywhere, screaming at the top of my voice, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, with my cousins joining in the ride(only their bicycle bells were put in use for its right purpose), scaring the hell out of anyone who even dared to walk around when we were out there with our cycles. It worked perfectly. Not a soul on the street, and if there was one, believe me, my cycle would magnetically unintentionally be driven towards them, of course, with the screams, so as to scare them back to their homes 

This saga continued for the entire summer vacation, and I was quite popular, so much so, that towards the end of the summer vacation, when I had to leave grandma’s place to go back home, and thus, didn’t go cycling, people of the lane, obviously concerned, ventured out slowly and asked my cousins about the missing “Screaming girl”  

Yep, that good at screaming 

This remains one of the best memories (oh, there are many, and bah, gone are those carefree days) of our summer vacation adventures and we three cousins talk about this every time we meet up.

So, do you scream too? Want to compete?

Oh, BTW, I should make it clear that no individual, bird or animal or any living species was harmed during that screams filled summer vacation .