The Cracked Pot

Thought of putting this one in my blog. Its a beautiful story I read somewhere...probably in of those chain mail forwards. Nevertheless the story is a good one and here it goes.....

An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole, which she carried across her neck. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water, at the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do.

After 2 years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream "I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you. I have been able to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all of this work, and you don't get full value from your efforts" the pot said.

The old woman smiled, “Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side?” “That’s because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house.”

Moral: Each of us has our own unique flaws. We're all cracked pots. But it's the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding.

Embarrassment & Stuck Zipper

Wifey gone on business trip to US and the initial euphoria of returned bachelorhood gone...life is pretty drab these days....except for one interesting thing which happened recently.

I live in a noveu rich locality with several gated society buildings all around. Somewhere very near to this place is a building which acts as hostel for foreign exchange students mostly from sub -saharan Africa or south east Asia occasionally a Brit or American can be seen also....

There is one department store near our place and everyone comes over here for purchasing daily needs. I being a lazy dumb ass, walked into  the department store in my shorts and Tee one fine Sunday morning to get a pack of mother cow's juices.....

Normally, I care a damn for low fat/skimmed/toned/double toned/quadra zillion million toned milk.....seriously its too damn confusing....for me as long as its white and liquid...its milk.

I picked on a carton of milk and was just coming out of the aisle when I nearly collided with a rather well-dressed, well endowed, tall, slim British-ish woman in a comely lavender dress.

Comprehensive eye make-up was spotted. I am no expert, but I think it was a one-shoulder floor-length dress with a slanted empire waist. Classy indeed.

Unfortunately my milk carton had fallen down and the British-ish lady picked it up for me. “There you go,” she said, handing over the milk carton.

I barely managed a Thank U.........I was using small words because I was holding my stomach in.

She turned around and was about to walk away, when she turned back and said if I could help for a second.

“O… K…” I said struggling due to lack of oxygen.

I am not making the rest up.

“Can you zip me up please. I think it is stuck.” She looked tremendously embarassed

But my embarrassment was making her embarrassment look like an amateurish embarrassment who practised being embarrassed only for occasional office embarrassment tournaments.

I noticed, the offending zipper was a tiny one stuck halfway between her waist and her under-arm, leaving a few inches of her dress open on the side.

I sheepishly pulled up the zipper a couple of times. Nothing happened. And then I held the dress and she pulled the zipper.

Nothing.

Then I pulled down on the zipper in order to do the old “rezip with momentum” trick. Which is when I realised that the zipper went all the way down.

At this point of time my embarrassment would have probably made George Bush Jr.'s embarrassment at not finding WMD with Saddam look puny....

kept at it for another 5 mins. The bloody thing would run smoothly to a apoint and then simply get stuck.

Eventually we realized that our relationship was going nowhere.

"Maybe I should go find a woman to help me…” she said, opening a whole new can of mental worms.

“I am sorry I am so bad at this…” I said.

And then we parted on amicable terms. I turned around and ran out of the store clutching my milk carton and gasping for air.

Moral of the Story -  Should have been a little thinner so that I could hold my breath for some more time :)