Soccer fever hits my cricket crazy friend

By K.R. Nayar 

Until yesterday, my cricket-crazy friend had no issues. He would often use cricket terms to convey messages, and that became his way of talking. When he was broke at the end of the month, he would say he was clean bowled for money. And when it was time to pay at a restaurant, he would claim he got yorked for money that month. When I had asked him to repay me the money he had borrowed, he said pitch conditions were not favourable. I knew his wallet always had a lot of swing and seam movement. 

Now all of a sudden, he has switched to using soccer terms following the start of the World Cup soccer.

When I repeated the request for my money, his response was that his finances were a Messi. The other day when and I was waiting to pick him up, he messaged me that he was only kicking in and I would have to wait for some time. His reason for being late was that the final whistle for sleep did not happen.

By then I was hungry and decided to take him along for breakfast although he owed me money. After a sumptuous breakfast, he said he found the food goal-geous. But he refused the ‘red’ watermelon juice and opted for the ‘yellow’ mango milkshake. 

Later on, he apologised for his offside behaviour of not having had an early breakfast. On our way back, he complained about his credit card, stating it was behaving like a rebound from the goalpost, and expressed disappointment with the ATM machine, which he thinks kicked him off.

Then he tried to convince me that he would repay my money soon; then had the cheek to tell me that he would top his card with money soon, before stoppage time. With the deadline to pay up the credit card staring at him like the goal line, he was a little upset that there was no defensive wall left. Also, chances for extra time were not possible either. However, he added that on many previous occasions, he has proven to be a last-minute winner just before the deadline.

All of this was just too much for me. All I wanted to know from him was a final date when he would repay my loan. He said he could dribble with me for a later date, but cannot do that with a bank card. The bank would give him a penalty and block the card. He then stared out of the car and, looking at the sky, said, “It is time, like taking possession of the ball by a midfielder, you should take possession of my salary. Then I won’t have to pass the debt back to me again.”

“The bank will not bother if I fake an injury collapse and roll in pain. Their goal will be to get their due from me on time before the final whistle,” he added. According to him, banks are terribly unsporting and is upset that he cannot even plead or argue like a player does with a referee, since they take joy in pushing him into the penalty box.

Just after I dropped him, he turned around to ask if I had some extra money to spare like extra time. All I did was to lift the watermelon juice I was still sipping and drive off.