Doorbell pranks and glum people

We heard the doorbell together. Ma and I. I walked faster to the door. Ma relaxed and allowed me to go ahead and open. No one outside. I waited. I peered to the left and to the right. Nope. No one. Very spooky. This has now happened for the third time this week. Ma has an explanation. The bell rings by itself. It's happened in the past too, she says. I ask her how does she know that. She allows logic to take over. If there is no one at the door and the bell has rung, it's ringing by itself, isn't it? Ah, that logic. Okay, so by that logic, if the ball is swinging reverse, it is always scratching itself on one side. Self scratched ball. By that logic, if no one is seen pissing on the road and yet we have the stench of piss everytime we walk that patch of road, then the road is pissing on itself. By that logic, Sunanda Pushkar has killed herself since the blessed CBI aren't able to find anyone who's done the deed. So one and so forth. I argue with Ma. Cannot there be two young boys having the time of their life, ringing doorbells and rushing off into the stairwell to quietly hide? There can be. Most definitely, that could be a case. I know. I did it when I was young. My accomplice is now a top grade engineer in a Fortune 500 company and a father of two and so he will never attest to the fact that we did it. But we did do it. So I know how this is all done. Our game was Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Of course, I was Finn, what did you think? Inwardly, I smiled while I came away back to my study. A weekend without such pranks for any kid isn't a good weekend. I would have loved it if they would have left a warning note too at the door. "Smile at people in the lift or else..." By the way, is there an unwritten code somewhere about lifts? - "Stay glum, act glum and the world will conspire to work for you" Even the pizza delivery guy becomes the saddest soul in lifts. The Amazon delivery guy definitely is. He is like "Saari duniya ka bojh hum uthate Hain!". Maybe, Amazon one day surely will, probably, who knows. But people living in the building aren't all in Amazon, right. Why so glum? Ab Kya gum?