Warped word association

In my last ramble having taken you back to 1977, I’m now fast forwarding all the way to 2000 and the five lovely years we spent in Sri Lanka.

On one of my regular business trips to the UK, Kitty having accompanied me, Atool Jhaveri a friend and business associate invited us for an evening out, informing me that his wife would be joining us so that we’d be four of us for dinner. Having never met the lady before that day, Atool did the honours introducing us to Chandrika. With the wine flowing rather freely, while much of the animated conversation around that dinner table is a bit of a blur and has long been forgotten, what I do recall is that the evening stretched rather late into the night and that we all had a great time.

Time moved on. A year or so later Atool flew into Colombo to spend a couple of days with us. Alone! No wife accompanying.

Polite as always (barring when she decides to ‘talk’ to me) my dear wife lets Atool know just how glad the two of us are that he’s finally found the time to pay us a visit, “But why didn’t you bring Margo along with you? She would have loved Sri Lanka”
“I’m sorry, who?”
“Margo”
“Who is Margo?”

And then her own foot, very innocently creeping long and finding its way into Kitty’s mouth.
“Your wife. Don’t you remember we had dinner together in London”
“Aha! You mean Chandrika!”
“Sorry! Yes of course, Chandrika. How could I have mixed her up with Margo, another friend of ours in London”

Hours later Atool having retired for the night I asked Kitty what that was all about since we have no ‘Margo’ in our circle of friends.

“You know that I remember names by association with something or the other, so when Atool introduced us to his wife I immediately associated her name with the only Neem soap available in the market then. Now we have this new one in the market so can you blame me for remembering her as MARGO!”

It’s called ‘wife logic’. Which, regardless of just how convoluted it may be, a husband questions only at his own peril!

Never did have the heart to tell Atool that he’s married to a soap, albeit one made with Neem!