Rumor has it

Did you hear...?

Rumors are fun. Really. Even when they are about you, sometimes they are fun. Apparently, in this part of the world, there is a rumor (or a rumor that there is a rumor) about me that I have a boyfriend. Nice, no?

I can imagine my close friends pointing and laughing at the very idea. If there is one thing that is an established fact among my friends, it is my absolute ignorance about "dating", "relationship" and things of the mushy kind. My best friend's favorite jibe at me is about how I wouldn't even realize it if a guy were trying to ask me out. So, there could be a measure of truth in the rumor - I might have a boyfriend about whom I myself am not yet aware of. I give it to the rumor-mongers.

And there are other generic rumors. My favorite one at school was, "no class today". I personally tried to start a rumor once - that the teacher slipped on the stairs and fell down, so no class. I had always imagined that scene with the teachers I did not like. My attempt fizzled out. Not even one soul in the class considered buying the lie. 

That was one of the earliest failures in my life. But I did not lose hope. I decided to perform a Root Cause Analysis for the fiasco (budding software engineer). I arrived at these causes:

1. Lack of lying skills - I had to admit, the teacher slipping in a staircase that consisted of 3 tiny steps and being rendered unable to come to class was a bit of a stretch on one's imagination.
2. Unconvincing body language while lying - This problem is caused by problem 1 because body language  efficiency is directly proportional to the "believability" of the lie.
3. Lack of support - Even my close friends did not support me in the effort. They did not have to believe in the rumor, they just had to talk about it.
4. Lack of incentives - I should have garnered support and offered incentives such as guarantee of not including their names in the mischief makers list if I got caught, bondas in my house that evening or something like that.

So what do we infer from the paragraph above? Rumors are instructive. They indirectly encourage self introspection.

And then there are rumors on a slightly larger scale. There was a rumor in our area that a certain ghost was frequenting the railway crossing at night time. I always wondered why ghosts chose night time. Probably because they are typically dressed in white and have a pale white complexion. If you look at it from a "rational" perspective, they are spotted at night due to better visibility conditions at night, with a dark background. Anyways, this rumor was harmless and in fact, had a positive effect, because kids were scared to wander far from the house at night and not many people frequented the railway track for digestive waste disposal.

And....rumor has it that people who type too much will not get dinner tonight. So, I am cutting this post short. 

P.S: It is rumored that those who read this post and do not leave nice comments on FB or Twitter will be tormented with more such posts. Just FYI.