Meet my son. God knows I don't remember the last time I met him! I think he's that thing that whizzes through the corridor every morning and evening. But it could very well have been a tornado. Only if it were, the extent of destruction would have been much less. 

One day, early from the office, I decided to at least catch a glimpse of my son 'the illusionist. I ran to the door when the doorbell rang, almost tripping over the carpet. I opened the door and hugged my son, ignoring the puzzled look on his face. So what if he had brown hair and green eyes, even though, we, his parents, were black haired and black eyed. The world was turning into a global village!

'Hi Mrs. Cooper,' he said.

'Mrs. Cooper?' I thought. It certainly had been a long time since we actually had a conversation with each other. Poor thing. He had even forgotten he called me Mamma. Or was it Mommy? 

I took him into the kitchen, still ignoring his puzzled expression. Two cookies, a glass of milk and half a pizza down, I found out that this well fed, almost humanlike creature, was not my son at all. Actually my son resembled a human much less!

I asked this brown haired thing that claimed to be my son's friend, and went by the name of Ali, to point out my son to me in the family picture that was stuck on the kitchen door. To my surprise he pointed out a lean mop like figure to me. 'THAT was my son?' And I had always wondered what a mop was doing in the family picture with my husband's arms wrapped around it. 

So that is what he looked like, I thought the refrigerator fed him better! How stupid of me to mistake my son for a mop. A mop, for God's sake, is better groomed! And the one that I thought was my son in the picture, turned out to be the neighbor's black St. Bernard!

After seeing-off this thatch of brown hair, that was my son's friend, I decided to get even with my first-born. First, I ransacked the attic to find my pair of joggers. Next came the tracksuit. Yes! I was adamant. This time I would be ready when the tornado struck. I set my alarm for six in the morning. That was his time for school. I asked my husband when was the last time he saw our son. He started counting months. Lets just say I fell asleep around the 96th.

The alarm went off. Hmm 'mornings! This is what mornings looked like! 'Looks' 'reminded me of my son. I had to know what he looked like. I put on my gear. Had to be ready for him. 

Slowly, I tiptoed out of the room, into the corridor, until I reached my son's room. There. This was the moment that I had been waiting for. 'Aha! Got you.' I shouted as I opened the door. The empty bed didn't exactly look like the mop in the picture. I decided that wasn't my son. Next came the open window. 'Nah,' I thought. He wasn't that square. 

Then it dawned on me. He had, as usual, evaded me. One look at the neighbor's roses, below the window, told me why I could never see him coming in and out of the house. Standing there I felt stupid, not because I failed at teaching him the difference between doors and windows, but because I had always admired my neighbor's green thumb for growing 'flat roses!' Not to say I had even tried growing a few myself, but in vain!

I staggered towards my own bedroom. So, he had succeeded once again. Well, there would be lots of other days too. But I had to go through another PTA meeting this year. And the teacher would reprimand me; scold me; shout at me for the grades of some child that I didn't even recognize. And I would, in turn, reprimand, scold and shout at some other child, who I would think (and hope) was my son. While my son would be getting similar shoutings from some other worked-up mother. 

'Sigh!' Who said motherhood would be easy!