As you know, this blog is, in a way, a love letter to my mom. An acknowledgment of her goodness and a way for me to share her qualities I admire the most.

But every so often, I write about well… her not so shining traits. She’s my funny mama who did a lot of funny things, and there’s no denying that!

Since it’s been far too long since I last wrote on this topic, today I’m doing a quick fire of three (f)unlessons – which, as you’ll remember, are the things my mom did that we should learn to do the complete opposite of.

(F)unlesson #1: Don’t be late to a wedding

As many of you might know, my mom was not the best at being on time. I’m pretty sure it’s the reason my dad – an extremely punctual person – started drinking wine. (Kidding.)

Every so often, this lateness got her – and us – into hot water. Like this one time our family was invited to a wedding that was taking place just down the road from us. Literally a five minute drive. And yet, fascinatingly, my mom was still able to get us late.

The thing is, for weddings (ones that don’t operate on Indian Standard Time anyway) – lateness is not an option!

We drove to the wedding, dashed out of the car and over up to the big doors leading to the wedding ceremony. As we opened the doors, the scene unfolded like out of a movie. All the guests, who were seated and facing forward to the altar, turned around to welcome the bride’s grand entrance… only to see us.

I honestly don’t remember anything else about this wedding. I’ve got no idea who was getting married, when this was, none of that. Perhaps I’ve unconsciously blacked out the details because of the sheer awkwardness of the moment!

Okay, it’s quite funny really. And knowing my mom, I can almost guarantee the full-on staring (or glaring) from the bridal party and guests didn’t remotely faze her. Buuuut probably not a good thing to make a habit of.

In short – if you’re going to be late to something, make sure it’s not a wedding.

(F)unlesson #2: Be careful what you keep

This is a funny one because my mom habitually threw things away that were cluttering up the house – something I’ve picked up from her as well. But the time she actually kept something? It backfired, of course.

Let me rewind: Each Christmas, one of Sanam’s friends would invite us over to make gingerbread houses. She’d have this amazing selection of everything from candy canes to gumdrops to gummy bears to chocolate kisses, and we’d craft intricately decorated houses dotted with candies and sprinkled with frosting.

We’d bring the gingerbread houses home and use them as decoration around the house, usually in the kitchen or living room. When Christmas had passed and we’d packed up all the decor in the house, we’d usually throw out the houses which by then we’d picked apart or poked at.

One year though, when the houses were still in good condition and we had no desire to eat them, my mom decided we’d store them till next year to re-use as decoration. Any why not? These were fine works of art.

Come the following Christmas, we opened up our designated Christmas cabinets in the garage… only to find our gingerbread houses completely eviscerated – by mice. Chimneys of the houses were bitten off, gumdrops viciously snatched from the roofs. Yikes.

Turns out, that year we had a mice infestation in the house. Also turns out, mice love gingerbread houses.

The next year, my mom decided we would not keep the gingerbread houses. Lesson learned.

(F)unlesson #3: Bleach with care

In summer 2012, following my college graduation, we took a family trip to Portugal and the south coast of Spain. We rented out apartments or houses in each of the cities we visited (mind you, this was pre-Airbnb days), and since they usually weren’t up to hotel standard in terms of cleanliness, my mom would generally do some sort of quick clean or wipe down before we got settled.

When we got to our house in Cadiz, Spain, it was dustier than expected and required even more of a clean than usual. So, my mom found some bleach in the cleaning cupboard and decided she was going to bleach, well, everything.

She bleached all the floors and counters of the house which definitely did the trick – it was sparkling clean and smelled great (I do love the smell of bleach). What she hadn’t quite anticipated was the potential for collateral damage: the khaki dress Sanam was wearing ended up picking up some bleach along the way, rendering spots of the dress yellow. Because apparently khaki + bleach = yellow.

Sanam was really angry – this was a dress she really liked, and now it was completely unwearable. It was a splotchy mess that belonged in the garbage. Or was it?

Of course my mom – being her creative self – saw a way to turn this around. She decided, why not bleach the entire dress? And voilà – the dress was fully transformed into a spring shade of yellow! It dress looked even better than it did khaki!

Here’s a picture of the dress, which Sanam keeps in Hong Kong. Unfortunately there’s no before shot, but you can picture the same thing in a shade of khaki (quite similar to the color of the bedspread under the dress, actually).

Okay, this one turned out pretty cool and my mom found a way to turn it around. But for all you bleach novices, you’ve been warned.

---

That’s all I’ve got for today, but there are infinitely more fun stories tucked away in my memory. It’s always nice reminiscing on the light and the silly and taking away some (unusual) life lessons along the way. Who said learning couldn’t be fun?