Honey I Shrunk The Bottle | Flash Post 408

Button, this actually happened in the home of the Bottlewalas.

What happened? Who are these Bottlewalas and how do you know about them?

It’s the family that lives on the floor above us.

Are they really called the Bottlewalas? Do they have anything to do with bottles?

Yes. If you can have Furniturewalas and Bandookwalas, Batliwalas, Boxwalas and Fruitwalas, why not Bottlewalas?

Which means they are in the business of making bottles?

They are. And it’s quite obvious that the Veeba brand that makes sauces and dressings buys their bottles from them. Now I am going to tell you the story of how they shrunk their own bottle.

That’s the picture above?

Yes.

Tell us.

The Bottlewalas got married a year back and moved into the flat above us just before the pandemic happened. Mrs Bottlewala was in the process of setting up home and hiring staff. She had barely managed to hire a cook and driver and was on the lookout for a part-time bai who would do the dishes and clean the house. What do you think happened next, Button?

Obviously, she was wary about hiring a maid because of the lockdown which meant that she’d come in to do the chores everyday which could prove risky.

She felt that as it was just the two of them, she’d instruct the cook to also do the dishes. When he humbly declined, she made up her mind to buy a dishwasher from one of the online portals. What do you think happened next, Button?

The dishwasher was installed and the mechanic did a demo to explain how the machine worked. She was mighty excited because she wouldn’t have to wash dishes and ruin her perfectly manicured nails.

She began experimenting with the machine. The mechanic had specifically told her not to load aluminium dishes and non-stick pots and pans but she was having fun and decided to do everything the mechanic had told her not to. Of course the aluminium’s came out stained and black and the non-stick hardly got cleaned with grease stacked up on the sides. She wanted to experiment with an empty plastic bottle which had some time back bottled some eggless mayonnaise. The bottle was sturdy and she felt she could use it for storage. She loaded it upside down as instructed with other mugs, glass bottles and plates, etc, and ran the machine for an hour and fifteen minutes. And what do you think happened?

Are you serious! You mean the bottle shrunk like that? What could possibly have gone wrong? Is that a picture of the original bottle and the same bottle after the wash.

Seeing the bottle in its current condition, she squealed with laughter, contorted her body to imitate it and clutching the mis-shapen bottle with her hands, ran into the bedroom to show it to her husband thinking that the two of them would have something to laugh about. Mr Bottlewala didn’t find this funny at all. He took the bottle from her, held it in his hands for a minute, turned it this way and that way and proclaimed that it was a fantastic piece of art. The expression on Mrs Bottlewala’s countenance gradually turned from one of laughter to surprise. Curtains displaying her pearly white teeth drew to a close in slow-mo.