An Outlet: Part 4

23 June 2018.

Today was such a good day!

Office was normal but the fun began after office hours. Since it's a Saturday, we had a half day at work and were free by lunch time. Or a little after that.

Kristen and I had decided to go for lunch and then go for some shoe shopping. So after work, we left and went to a small Chinese place and had some chicken chilly garlic basil bao, Thai curry and some jacket potatoes.

Whenever my family decides to eat outside, we tend either go for Indian or Chinese cuisine and even then I have never had any of these three items. Since Kristen is a big foodie and likes to experiment, I have decided that whenever I have lunch with her, I am going to explore other dishes. And I did!

I liked the Thai curry rice but I would still choose chicken fried rice over it any day. The flavour of the bao was damn good but it's felt too small. And they gave us only two pieces which felt a tad bit expensive considering the amount we paid for it. I don't think I'll give jacket potatoes another try. What's interesting was that I found it sweet while it was spicy for Kristen.

Anyways, we had a great time during lunch. We lip-synced along to the covers of popular songs that were being played in the background. Some of these songs were old so they brought back some or the other memories.

After lunch, we headed towards the station. However, on our way, we stumbled upon a restaurant which claimed to be hosting a bunch of (mostly board) games for a price. We thought it was worth giving a shot so we entered the restaurant. I had been to this place once before with Paloma but they didn't have games then.

There was an assortment of games in front of us and the restaurant people told us that the first hour is free but they'll start charging once we cross an hour. What a sweet deal! Since this was anyways an impromptu plan, we decided to play something for an hour while ordering some dessert for ourselves.

We ordered a banoffee (I had never tried it before. Infact, I didn't know there was a concept called Banoffee) and it was DELICIOUS! I don't normally have desserts when I go for lunches or dinners but if I have an option, I would totally opt for a Banoffee.... other than brownies. Don't worry brownies, I haven't forgotten about you.

We decided to play Jenga cause I had seen so many people play it and it looks nervewreckingly fun! And it was! Kristen didn't know the rules so first I had to explain it to her but in the end, I was the one who lost. In my defence, I played a complete fair game. While Kristen frickin' used her other fingers to support the other blocks! How is that fair?!

After a while, the supposed 'game-masters' arrived that's when we realised that this gaming situation is actually a start up and was not organised by the restaurant. The game master told us that there was a miscommunication and we would have to pay starting from the first hour itself. Kristen then smartly took advantage of that miscommunication and we ended up getting a 50% discount! Yay!

Since our hour got restarted, we were able to play one more game. It was some sort of a word game and I knew that I was going to lose the minute I realised that it's a word game. Kristen is too good with words! She has a 365 day writing account dammit! It was hilarious tho! At one point, the game master came to us and upon seeing our progress told us that Kristen had already one. Apparently she had won long back. LOOOOOOOOL!

After the game, we got talking about the place's unique and vintage interiors with the game master, whose was apparently a relative of the one who owned the restaurant. She showed us around the restaurant. There was a book nook and a top floor that I somehow hadn't noticed the last time I was here! But it was so cool! The top floor had a wall where the books looked like they were stuck halfway into the wall. In another section, there were alphabets hanging from the ceiling with a backdrop of quite a few book covers.

After randomly telling the grandmaster about a book review we had in college, we finally left the place and went to the station. We could not stop laughing the entire train ride back to our desired station. I swear we used to have normal conversations but now it's just gag and trash and I'm living for it!

Of course it had to rain as soon as we began shopping. But I did manage to quickly buy myself a pair of shoes that I was desperately in need of. I had been wanting shoes like that for a long time and now I finally own them. Yay!

We left for home soon after, but not before promising to write something inspired by those falling alphabets we had seen in that restaurant.

Here are two things that I came up with:

"And and and then you know what else happ... hey, why are you so silent?"

Why am I silent?

Why am I....

S I L E N T

I E T S L N

E S N I T L

L I S T E N

"Listen, then you'll know why."

Here's the second one:

He had it all planned out, all his words carefully chosen.

Successfully keeping it in for so long, he was ready to let it all go and once and for all, come out.

He kept going through his speech the entire way to his parents' room and upon entering-

"Oh hello my strong boy, I was just telling your mom how your wrestling has improved." beamed his dad.

There. That did it.

His speech, along with his confidence, crumbled

Went falling back into his little corner of

'maybe another day'.