Alka Bai

We have moved to my current house in August 2007 and till a week back our living room was completely vacant. We have a funny looking dining table and 4 chairs. Apart from that there was no place to sit in our so called living room. Our rooms have all the required furniture.

But every now and then I felt the need to get a couch but never had enough money to buy one. Actually I didn't want to invest my money in one. Then one day we went to our friend's house warming party and I realized that their house was homely and ours wasn't even close to being called HOME. This was it I thought. I had to make the apartment into a home. I discussed this with my house mate and realized that she shared the same feelings. The very next day we went to Ikea and bought stuff to beautify our house. We got non sense I must say. This non sense includes rugs and candles and artificial flowers , but not a couch.
The next day while coming back from work I went to Salvation Army store to look for really cheap second hand couches. I was very delighted to find a few that were worth buying. But I needed to consult my house mate and decided that I would visit the store again with her, but again that day never came. Weeks passed by.
Then one fine morning when I was really late for work I saw a couch under my building, just 2 minutes away. But I had no time to go and examine it. Bad luck I said to myself. I thought about the couch all day at work and started cursing my luck. When I went back home in the evening, to my surprise the couch was still there. Oh great !!!! I thought. I called my house mate who was sound asleep. I tried to explain to her about the couch but all in vain. I checked the couch myself but I wasn't sure about it so I called up another friend of mine who lives next door and asked him to help me with the decision. After debating for a while, we decided to take the couch home. Now the question was how and who will pick it up ? There was no one except for the two of us. We somehow managed to bring the couch home. We quickly arranged and rearranged the interiors of the house. I was happy that finally I had a couch in the house.
Then it suddenly struck me that I was Alka Bai. Ok who is Alka Bai now ? Alka Bai is our maid in India who comes every morning to clean the common area of the society. Every now and then she keeps on asking for free stuff, be it anything she is always ready to take it home. She asks my mom " Bai yeh mein le jaau kya ?? " I had become Alka bai. I never thought a day would come in my life when I would happily and proudly put someone else's rubbish in my living room.
Anyways I realized that these our the lessons we have to learn from our life and live with them.
So this was the day I became Alka bai :)
Attaching a few pictures of my new living room