It didn’t matter if we were Marie-Kondo (the Japanese organising consultant) organised, or hanging on for dear life from the situationally disorganised end of the spectrum — sadly that is where my siblings and I existed more often than we’d like to admit. Either way, it seemed that there was always something in our life that was either missing or couldn’t be found. 

And if there was a question my mother hated, it was that desperate voice that hollered across the hallways while its owner created a racket and ransacked the house ghoulishly searching for some possession. 

By then the house would be drowning in utter chaos. A rapid exchange of loud ‘WHAT’s’ would be fired back and forth, forcing the elderly couple next door to unplug their hearing aids, and eventually causing the search party to show up at my mom’s door, desperately seeking wisdom and knowledge on the whereabouts of their beloved. Having given up on the quest we were now positive that the said item was lost, or worse stolen. And to further irritate mother, adamant that it was someone else’s fault and that we had kept it right there in the centre of the living room — the safest place in the house. 

How Alexa, the virtual assistant, couldn’t quite replace my mom

A complete and thorough description would then be shared along with useless minutiae about its purchase or how much we loved it. On most occasions, the seekers were fully dressed to leave for an interview or an important evening out and were always running late. Always. 

In their desperation, or perhaps undeterred and resolute in their search, we would then begin our pursuit anew and look in odd places around the house, like the spice rack or the fresh linen drawer.

Mother, having enough of the absurd situation would then intervene. Sometimes all she had to do was ask if we had looked carefully enough in the said item’s original place. 

Frustrated, we would reply, of course we had and that it was not there. The anger would then be misdirected at mother and we would stomp over to said drawer, open it to reveal its contents to prove that we had indeed looked. In nine out of ten of these instances, the missing object would be sitting right there at the top, in clear sight.

Embarrassed, we would meekly grab the item, sheepishly mumble “thanks” and half-heartedly insist that we had indeed looked here earlier. After the ground would refuse to swallow us whole, we would hurriedly make an exit. 

And this is how the day was saved and crisis averted by mother. Earning her the title of The Keeper Of All Things in the house and expecting her to have minute-to-minute tracking and the precise location of every inanimate object that existed within her realm, especially the knowledge of the whereabouts of everyday objects.  

And just like that, mother began to ease down on other reminders too. She claimed it was a fail-safe and elaborate plan to make us ‘adults’ so we could be “independent.” 

It was in this way that we lost and eventually found passports hours before visa interviews, heart-broken soulmates of socks, homework assignments and other essential paperwork — and on one occasion, even a sandwich. 

If mother were to ever run a data analysis on these ‘misplaced’ objects, keys, cell phones and apparel would rank the highest with the question “Has anyone seen my keys? I just kept them here,” popping up at an average of three times a day. 

Once the norm had been established, things came to a point where the residents of the house began to question mother without even looking for the required item themselves. And ever so casually that it didn’t even feel like a strange question at all. It was far easier just to ask mother than to actually make the effort of getting up and looking for it yourself. There was always this one percent chance that it wouldn’t be there so, statistically, why take the risk? 

Sometimes out of sheer laziness we would stand stupidly in front of the open refrigerator and loudly ask if we had any of that cake left from last night.

Mother worrying that all this smothering was making us stupid then began to ignore our questions. Her “Top shelf, left drawer, four inches from the right”, and “Your room, behind the door on the red peg” instructions — far more accurate than Google Map’s directions became “No, haven’t seen it” even though we suspected she had. 

And just like that, mother began to ease down on other reminders too. She claimed it was a fail-safe and elaborate plan to make us ‘adults’ so we could be “independent.” 

We found ourselves struggling, and were forced to rummage the fridge to cater to our late-night cravings and set alarms to wake us up for work. But then Amazon Echo introduced us to Alexa to help with ‘adult-ing’ and things got so much better. The questions and favours we habitually asked mother were now directed at Alexa. It was now her job to repeatedly remind us to do our groceries, our laundry, to take our meds, give directions on how to cook dinner and ensure we made it to work on time. Alexa was a genius and answered all our questions within seconds. Except when we were running late and couldn’t find that one item we needed to head out the door. At this point, Alexa would regretfully decline and offer to call up Mother.

Published in Dawn, EOS, September 16th, 2018