Oh, if only we could be like this!

Have you noticed how some people lead perfectly coiffed lives? The husband steadily gets promoted, the children all do brilliantly in school and the wife runs a beautiful home and wears real diamonds and is accomplished to boot. Their homes could be featured in lifestyle magazines and their garden has no weeds. Their front gates are like shining citadels and do not resemble worn-out slippers.
Their FB page has pictures of them in Santorini, Gstaad and watching Wimbledon. Occasionally, they post pictures of themselves in fancy restaurants where you do not get your lips wet.
They never have a white ant or roach infestation, and mould in the walls of their home. They do not leave their visa renewals till the last minute and then hit the panic button. They don't have a panic button because they do not need one. Hap-hap-happy things happen to them on a daily basis and they skip all the potholes in life.
Life is so kissed with bliss, they are actually a loving couple even after 30 years of marriage and they are known as the ideal twosome.
The breadwinners keep winning loaves of bread for years and get promoted and are never sidelined, dumped as a part of the corporate restructuring or made redundant officers on special duty. They get their bonuses on time and stay in the same organisation for 35 years.
They never lose on the stock market and all their investments come up heads. Their cheques are never returned because the signatures don't match, credit card companies do not call them 77 times a day to warn them of dire consequences and they have no idea what it means for their cards to be rejected by the machine. The word 'declined' does not exist.
Their domestic help is respectful and hardworking and does not answer back or take a walk despite you bending over backwards to be nice to him or her. Their driver actually keeps the car spotless and does not get speeding fines.
Inanimate objects do not conspire to make their lives a living hell. Like, the water pressure motors do not burn out, the fridge does not stop freezing, the air conditioners do not drip water onto the one expensive carpet, maintenance is not a daily chore and dark glasses, car keys and socks never go missing. In that sense, they do not spend half a day of every day engaged in a treasure hunt looking for things that were here a minute ago.
High heels do not snap in public, nor do zips get stuck or buttons pop. Their two ends are the best of friends and have no hassle meeting, unlike the rest of us whose efforts to introduce one to the other end are fraught with failure.
Their important documents are all filed in neat order and they have no concept of "who threw the original certificate in the garbage, what are we going to do now, I had kept it safely under the cornflakes packet because it was a perfectly reasonable place, where was the need to mess with it, I knew where it was, will everyone stop messing about with this cleaning up stuff?"
They never have a financial crunch, no one spills liquid on their white couch or breaks a cut-glass vase and their car is always shiny clean and spotless. Their computer dare not get a virus; it just never stops working.
Their TV sets do not break down in the middle of a big game nor do their iPhones go on the blink and no one overbills them or says your warranty has run out.
They never miss a flight or get offloaded or badly treated, and they tell you how they got upgraded to first class and their hotel rooms actually have a sea-view. No one steals their money or mugs them or overcharges them. Even their flights leave on time.
Their teenage children never fight, threaten to run away or simply be insolent and hate them.
The gas never runs out when guests are arriving.
They have life insurance, savings plans, investments and talk about Alaskan cruises like they were going to the mall.
Sunbeams dance on their kitchen floor.
They do not get up in the morning stressing about what the day will bring.
They are so perfect that Norman Rockwell would kill to paint them.
wknd@khaleejtimes.com