How I Silently Tortured My Insufferable Flatmate During WFH
Living in a shared flat in a bustling metro like Bangalore during the early days of the pandemic was a unique challenge. We were all thrust into WFH, suddenly stuck 24/7 with the very people we usually only saw mornings and evenings. And then there was *him*. My flatmate, whose entire personality had become his fat corporate package and supposed genius in construction management.
Before COVID, his bragging was irritating; during WFH, it became an omnipresent torment. Every video call, every chai break, every meal, he’d pontificate about his "easy" high-paying job, how he was destined for greatness, and how our "modest" incomes were proof of our lesser ambitions. My blood would boil listening to him flaunt his perceived superiority, while we all struggled with our own WFH pressures, anxieties about job security, and the sheer claustrophobia of lockdown.
My patience wore thinner than a threadbare saree. One particularly frustrating evening, as he loudly declared his "package" for the tenth time that day while hogging bandwidth on a useless streaming marathon, a devilish thought crept in. I was the one who managed our Wi-Fi router. A simple, almost undetectable tweak, a silent limit on *his* device’s bandwidth. A petty revenge, perhaps, but a potent one.
I watched with a twisted satisfaction as his calls began dropping, his "crucial" online meetings buffered endlessly, and his high-definition shows pixelated into oblivion. He’d curse our ISP, blame the "poor Indian infrastructure," and fret about "technical glitches" – never once suspecting his silent tormentor. It was my secret, my guilty pleasure, a quiet rebellion against his relentless bragging. Even now, the memory brings a smirk to my face. This is my confession.
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