The Great Spoon Robbery!

I intend on making this a very short post. But knowing me well, I might end up making it the longest. As of now, I am in my fav position with my fingers playing on the keyboard and my thoughts flowing faser than I can type(which is pretty fast). I had never imagined, not even once during my school days, that I would be missing them so much. I remember having whined, complained and bitched about so many things, all of which I am missing now. My friends(though a couple of us are in the same coll we never get to meet as oft as we like),my enemies(too strong a word maybe, but come on I still havent got to liking them....tolerate....maybe), my teachers( really! the good and the bad ones too) and so many other things and people that I have always taken for granted. Most of all I miss my exams. I never slogged too hard, never had night outs, never spent time worrying whether losing a mark would make me ineligible for a campus interview in the final year or by how much my CGPA would fall. Exams were half-day affairs in school, a subject a day, and they used to be spread over a period of atleast 3 weeks followed by a 10-day holiday. Here in coll I am struggling to get used to the idea of writing 2 papers a day, not knowing word, finishing exams in a week and getting the results immediately.
But there ae a few common threads between coll and school. Like the chats in the corridors, sleeping in class( that goes on everywhere!), passing notes in between classes,assignments (I finish them on time though I dont see Mrs.Mary with her long wooden ruler anywhere) and ofcourse the canteen.
My school canteen, as I recollect, had a small counter, which was forever crowded. Not thatit had a great variety of items(it certainly didnt) but it did have a set of 'forever-in demand' stuff like thenmittai(candy with honey inside), macroons, butter biscuits and the star item samosas. These were the standard items till I came to the high school and then the tastes of the students escalated and the management had to makes changes to cope up with it. When I entered the school parliment in 12th, we,the ministers, improvised the canteen and that was one of our first successful acts, as the decisions were unanimous. So when I left school, my canteen has risen to the status of providing lunch which was "Friyani"(for ppl wh are confused as to whatthis strange delicacy may be,let me enlighten you by telling you that it is just Biriyani, a common rish dish, spelt this way on the canteen board) and curd rice.
So one can imagine my awe, on entering my college canteen on the very first day shrugging away the threats of ragging, when I saw a board with around 75 items, classified into 6 categories (God, I'm good at remembering things like this) and seeing the crowd which several times greater than what I was accustomed to. I had the courage to order a sweet lime juice, and with several seniors surrounding me, didnt have the courage to hang around any more than I was supposed to. But then within a week, we had familiarised ourselves with the canteen. It is one of those wonderful places, where everything was cheap but delicious, and there would be a big crowd forever.
It was pretty much of a rude shock, when I was playing "Who dares" with my friends one day, that I was dared to steal a spoon from the canteen. Well some of them had got stuff that were really tragic and horrible and so I was consoling myself with the fact that I was lucky, but still, I was never good at stealing, even something as insignificant and trivial as a spoon from the college canteen.
But then a dare was a dare and I was not prepared to be branded a chicken. And that particular day, the canteen seemed more crowded than ever and I had this eerie feeling that everyone was watching what I did. It took me several moments to shrug off that strange notion and go over to the lunch counter. I had ordered a plate of noodles and gobi 65. While I was waiting in the counter, my eyes scanned for the tray of spoons and fork and voila! I spotted it a few yards from where I was standing.
It was one of those moments, when you are under great strain, that you would end up missing something really stupid, and in my case it was the pockets in my school uniform. Things would have been infinitely smoother if I did have a pocket but then again I didnt. And so I was standing there,sweating hard, trying my best to get my hands to pick one of those spoons. It felt horrible, my hands got clammy, my knees weak, my heart thudding so loud that it reminded me of the drums in a heavy metal band and my mind getting disoriented to the maximum. I dont know how it happened but it did happen and I found myself with a spoon in my hand. And to my luck, the guy handed my parcels neatly kept in a plastic bag and I walked away as quickly as I could manage. When I was finally outside, I tried to put the spoon inside the bad and since my hands were trembling badly, I dropped it. One chappie, who had just come out, picked it up and gave it to me(thanks buddy) and I rushed back to class, nearly ran for my dear life.

Epilogue:

I did complete my dare and it was soon forgotten as most things are by almost all of us (except me ofcourse). I didnt have the heart to keep or throw the spoon away, so I made sure I placed it back in the canteen the very next day, much to the amusement of my friends. This part, I prefer not to describe in detail as I have already exceeded my quota for this post. Then again "All's well that ends well". The end.