A cuckoo bird looks innocent but has a cunning character. It leaves its eggs in other bird’s nest for the host bird to incubate and rear its young. In the same way, there are some people who have a knack of getting things done. They are the problem creators who get their things done, by making some one the scape goat. They can be categorized as ‘the smart Cuckoo’.
They are among our friends. This includes the guy who asked me to accompany him to his uncle’s house in the neighborhood. Now, this was an underground house with lots of passages and partitions. We felt claustrophobic in there and there was this feeling of eeriness all around. So, my very creative friend utilized the time we got while the old couple were busy, in sketching out a cartoon. He drew his uncle and aunt as Mickey Mouse and Minnie mouse respectively, standing outside a big slice of cheese with holes. Uncle Mickey was holding a board ‘Welcome to our humble home’. Naturally, we both kept thinking about it and laughing throughout. The poor couple mistook it as part of the generation gap and wrote us off as a pair of jovial youngsters. After that day, I saw the couple many times and felt that they ignored me. I thought that it was only a feeling until one day; I met uncle at the departmental store. I was like “Hi uncle!! Came to get some grocery??” He gave me an Uncle Scrooge look and sneered “Exactly. You see, we ran out of cheese.”
I immediately hunt down my friend. It was only after a lot of torture (like tickling his feet with a bird’s feather and pulling his hair from his head- one by one) that he finally gave in. He confessed that he had left the cartoon at uncle’s place that day (What!!!) and in order to save his face, he conveniently made me the cartoonist. He justified himself by telling “I am related to him. I am sure that anybody in my place, would have done the same thing.”
This is a normal characteristic of ‘the Smart Cuckoo’. They have their version of explanation for all the nonsense that they do.
They also come as a group. They could be your colleagues who drill you to ask for an increment, just before a meeting. During the meeting, you raise your hand to make the point. After which, your boss crosses his hand and asks the group “Does anyone else have the same opinion??” This question is being presented to same people who were barking about employee rights and total dissatisfaction, just few minutes ago. Suddenly, half of them act as though they are struck by rare case of amnesia. The other half, sit as though they had erroneously rolled back their tongue and swallowed it down for lunch.
This is yet another characteristic of the people who belong to ‘the Smart Cuckoo’. They poison in private and go mute in public.
Now, if that is not enough damage, I am pleased to announce that they even come in all ages. The classic example is the headmistress next door. She has this eccentric dressing style which even girls half her age would not dare to try. She drags me out for shopping every time. You need to read further to understand her real motive….
As usual, she wanted to select this shocking colored dress. I warned her that, her son would refuse to let her inside the house. She protested telling that “This is an ‘in-thing’. You wait and watch. Here, nobody has a sense of fashion. My style is going to be a synonym to that word”. Since, she is a headmistress; she is never in scarcity of dialogues. In order to start teaching the lesson of fashion immediately, she decides to wear her ‘in-thing’ from the store itself. The store people were glad that they got rid of a piece that, customers refused to take for free. They happily packed up her old clothes for her. After all, ‘customer is king’.
We had lunch and were just about to board a cab, when her son comes and drags us into his car. It seems that his friends had informed him about the catastrophic event that was going to happen if his mother was allowed more time in that outfit.
Having realized that her son would be pouncing on her, the headmistress burst out into crocodile tears and started bleating like an innocent lamb, “I tried on the clothes and she said that I looked great.” In midst of this, she wiped out her tears and signaled me, to join her side of the drama. She was one drama queen alright.
This brings me to the third characteristic of ‘the smart cuckoo’. A similar confrontation is dealt differently by the two sexes. The female ‘smart cuckoo’ would scare us by bursting her tear cylinders so as to avoid giving answers. The male ‘smart cuckoo’ would not allow us to talk, by showing sudden outburst of anger similar to that shown by hungry cats fighting over some leftovers.
Now that they have been exposed, get smart, people. Don’t allow ‘the smart cuckoo’ to lay their eggs in your basket.
