Scenes from a Marriage: The long road to Wales

"What are you doing?"

"What do you think I am doing?"

"1040? Filling US tax forms?"

Silence

"I don't understand why you have to do taxes so late"

"Yeah?"

"No, waiting till the last minute! You had all the time in the world na?"

"Yes, but I did not have your W2 until last week. Exactly how am I supposed to do taxes without your W2?"

"Yes, but I got you that last week na?"

"Do I need to remind you that its not just my taxes that I am doing?"

"And why is that? Because you do not trust me to fill it in correctly. You are paranoid. Your fault"

"Of course. Its all my fault"

"Do you know that you are the only person in the whole damn world who doesn't trust my Math skills?"

"Just remind me of the last time you calculated tip accurately"

"Tips and all I can't do man"

"Taxes are the same. Shup up for sometime, will you?"

"How much money are we getting back?"

"Some 3-4K"

"How come we are getting so much back? Because of married filing jointly?"

"No. That only pushes us into a higher bracket"

"Hmm..then why are we getting so much back?"

"I am getting so much back because I did not work for 4 months last year. Nothing to do with you"

"Yeah right. Cheating me of my money"

"You don't have any"

"Hmm..btw, I forgot to mention. We have to stop by work on the way tomorrow"

"Pardon?"

"We will stop at Cambridge on our way to Wales tomorrow"

"Cambridge is not on the way. You should revisit your geography"

"Ofcourse it is. I mean, if we get out the other way we will get hit by crazy going out of London traffic anyway"

"What? And Cambridge is not going out of London? That too, in the wrong direction"

"Well, we will have to go there anyway"

"Why is that?"

"I have some work"

"What work? You are off for Good Friday right?"

"Yes but there's this paper deadline..."

"Yeah?"

"So I have to send that off"

"And you did not know about this until now?"

"Its just an hour or so extra"

"Let me understand this. We go to Heathrow which is Southwest of the city early morn to pick up the car and then we drive around the city and up Northeast to get to Cambridge before heading back West to Wales. And how long is this work of yours going to take?"

"Not too long"

"How long is not too long?"

"Just a few hours"

"What?"

"We should be able to leave late afternoon"

"You are kidding right?"

"Not really. See, its no big deal"

"Hello? The whole point of driving on Friday was that we get to stop at places as its daytime. Now you want me to spend the day in Cambridge?"

"Its a nice city, you know"

"Yeah right"

"It is. Really. The buses may not be running tomorrow though. From my lab to the city. And you won't find parking in the city center"

"So I am stuck for God knows how long in middle of nowhere, Cambridgeshire all of tomorrow. How exciting!"

"Its not that bad. You can come meet my group at work"

"Yes, of course. I have been dreaming about that for ages. How nice of you!"

"Its really not that bad okay? We can still get to Snowdonia by midnight or so"

"Yes, and you will be peacefully sleeping on the passenger seat while I drive up and down mountains in the middle of the night. That too on the wrong side of the road! I should have known"

So that's the story of how I found myself between JJ Thompson Ave and Clerk Maxwell Road on a sunny Friday morning, William H Gates building on one side, Cavendish lab behind, Nanoscience lab in front and the superconductivity one next to it. West Cambridge, I discovered, is really my seventh grade Physics textbook.

(To be continued)