Ant Rogenous: Do you want to have sex?

E Rogenous: No.

Pwned.

Remember Magna Doodles? They’re awesome. A friend of ours gave Baby Rogenous a similar magnetic drawing board the other day, and I couldn’t resist having a crack at it.

Fifteen-month-old Baby is really beginning to talk now, and he’s able to name a handful of animals and make their noises. So I decided I’d make a game of drawing a few creatures for him to identify.

Now, I’m well aware that drawing isn’t a strength of mine … but there are worse people to get stuck playing Pictionary with, I reckon.

Turns out Baby begged to differ when I drew this dog:

He looked at the board; looked up at me; looked back at the board; looked up at me …

“Meow?” he said.

Off I ran to tell E Rogenous my latest hilarious “kids say the darndest things” story. She looked at the board; looked up at me; looked back at the board; looked up at me …

“Is that a nose or a penis?” she said. “And why does its tongue have testicles?”

PWNED. By every member of the family.

The recent terror attacks in Mumbai had me reaching for my Indian photo album, which I hadn’t opened up for some time. See, I was sure I’d taken a picture similar to that chilling photo of the deserted, bloodstained floor inside Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, which flashed around the world early on in the siege. Turns out I had, kind of — albeit a particularly shit one.

But that’s not really the point of this post. While flicking through the pictures, I was reminded all over again what a weird and wonderful country India is — which was a welcome distraction amid the tales and images of carnage, and the fucking idiots who wasted no time in exploiting the tragedy to score cheap political points.

Anyway, this photo in particular made me laugh. It’s taken not far from Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, and shows a young E Rogenous posing for a portrait while enduring the kind of hilariously shameless curiosity visitors to India attract at every turn:

I imagine a few conversations in offices around Mumbai’s financial district later that afternoon sounded something like this:

PRABHU:  What’d you get up to on your lunch break, Sanjay?

SANJAY:  Watched some white chick having her portrait drawn.

PRABHU:  …

SANJAY:  …

PRABHU:  … sweet.

Embarrassment aside, though, the portrait itself was worth every rupee.

I walked into the lounge tonight and caught E Rogenous browsing the Hire A Hubby website. She immediately began stammering an explanation, but the damage was done.

I went into the shower so she and our son wouldn’t see my tears. After a while, with the water still on full, I sat down, wrapped my arms around my knees and gently rocked myself until the water ran cold.

Reaching out of the shower, I remembered that my towel wasn’t hanging on the towel rail because the towel rail is in the bottom drawer of the vanity, where it’s been for the best part of six months.

I think I might call Hire A Hubby tomorrow myself.