To the victor, go, the snores
Yesterday I attended what can probably be called a disastrous dinner party. Vijay, neighbour, colleague and a friend of mine invited a bunch of us from work to dinner at his place. Instead of bothering Vijay's wife for the food (which we eventually ended up doing anyways) we decided to do some collaborative cooking and assemble at least an edible meal like a lot of those days before her arrival. In Gibraltar all of us (technical people from the India) are supposed to be on 24/7 support and yesterday turned out to be one of those "support call just before dinner" kind of nights which entangled more than half the dinner party crew in an online emergency all night long. An evening which was supposed to be fun and frolic turned out to be a war footing incident and both Vijay's house and mine were soon transformed into battle stations for fire fighting. Armed with our VPN connections and SSH terminals we were no less in comparision to a fire crew equipped with axes and water hoses.

Anyways people had to struggle till late in the night, sharing laptops for doing their part in resolving the issue at hand and my single bedroom apartment had to support lodging for 3. Ofcourse, I had a futon to spare but, that still left two of us on the same bed. Let me tell you something about two straight men sharing a bed - it's an awful experience which one should avoid as far as possible.

--> You get awake as if you just had a nightmare even if it's your own left foot that your right foot is touching.
--> In case an inadvertent tug of war is initiated, you will give up any number of blankets but, you won't be ready to share one.
--> You definitely can't sleep without a top like you might be used to regularly.
--> There is an invisible LOC running thru the middle of the bed which you will treat with utmost sanctitiy when compared to the one that runs between India and Pakistan.
--> You are painfully aware of your sexuality.

Phew! I gave up all hopes of rest after struggling to put myself to sleep and started reading a book. Meanwhile, my opponent managed to catchup with the sleep fairy. I call him an opponent because sleeping with a ... errr ... by the side of a man (sounds better) is a competition and the first one to get there is the victor and to the victor go the snores (it being slightly colder in Gibraltar than in India). After futile attempts to sleep on blanket + towel covered floor, the reclined chair and the home gym work bench, I finally gave up and got back to the bed to sleep with my eyes wide open.

Yawning away to glory even as I write this.

/PhaKuDi