Professor, of another kind

***

I was out to my uncle's place in Ohio for the Labor Day weekend here in the US of A. We went to the temple in Dayton on Sunday evening. The temple has an entrance from the basement, where devotees need to leave their footwear before proceeding upstairs. When it was time to leave after the darshan, I just walk out of the exit gate towards the car, totally unconscious about the fact that I never went to the basement to put on my footwear again :-) My aunt reminded me about it and I did it.

***

After quite a drive, I reach home from my uncle's place around midnight. I pull myself out of the large Chevy Impala that had taken me back and forth safely for almost 1700 miles in a span of three days time. I take great pains to ensure that I don't leave anything in the car seat pockets, trash all the cups and bottles, pick my mobile phone from the power window socket etc and head home. I sleep well. Morning, while getting ready for office, I frantically search for my wallet.. and where do you think it was? In the car front seat..!!

***

I always appreciate my roommate's observation and consciousness. He hopped onto the car and finds that other than leaving my wallet on the front passenger seat, I have also dumped a good deal of quarters near a socket close to the power window controls on the front door. He tells me I would need them for the laundry and asked me to pick them up without fail before dropping-off the car. And what do I land up doing? I carefully shred and trash the gas station receipts lying on the floor, trash the empty Starbucks Mocha and large Dunkin Coffee, leaving the quarters were they were..! It was late in the evening when I realized I needed quarters for the laundry that it stuck me about these.

***

My mobile phone battery had gone down considerably due to the fact that I was on speaker phone, talking and driving for the most part of the time last night. I reach out to my travel bag to pull the charger to re-charge mobile battery. I realize that I had left it at my uncle's place in Ohio.

***

Well... while my father never forced any of us to take or do what he wanted, he would always talk about the goodness of the academia and how he likes being a Professor and how he enjoys teaching and  research very much. He would keep suggesting that we should also probably try to see if we might want to get into such professorial role. I can definitely tell him, head straight-up, "Dad, you son is certainly a professor - of a different kind though, absent minded" :-)

***