The parents and Me

Whenever the parents descend down on me, it means hard work for me. First of all, I have to clean the house up. As the rest of the family (the parents, the brother, and the sister-in-law) have obsessive compulsive cleanliness syndrome, it means that I (who is fortunately free from this disorder) have to go to great lengths to clean the house up before they visit me. It is, of course, of no avail. My mother takes only one nanosecond to wrinkle her nose up and declare that the house is dirty. The rest of the visit is taken up by her attempts to clean the house to her standards.
The second item is the kitchen. Since it is in the able hands of Lata I do not have to bother about it usually. But before the parents come for a visit, I have to check that everything that they possibly need is present on the kitchen shelf. Then there are dispensable items like Tea and Coffee and Milk, which has to be purchased and kept in adequate amounts.
I was complaining to my father today as to how much of hard labour I had to put in to ensure that they do not have any cause to complain. My father retorted that he too had to put in hard day's work for this visit. Apparently, he has got tired of my objection to his hair which curls up if it grows more than an inch. Last time I said that I would get him a rubber band to tie it up so that he can look like a rock star. As my mother has got inexplicable dislike to the barber on campus, this time appa has prudently got his hair cut in Madras itself.