💬 A man on a train with a boiled egg told me to wait 3 days

Years ago, before I moved to Jeddah, I was ready to put 2 lakh down on a flat in Kompally. The builder said the offer ended Sunday. I was on a train back from Vizag on Friday night. A man across from me asked why I looked so tense. I told him, mostly to fill the silence. He had a steel tiffin box on his lap and was peeling a boiled egg. He listened to the whole thing, chewing. Then he said, if it's good on Sunday it's good on Wednesday. I said the builder wouldn't wait. He said, then it's not your flat. He went back to his egg. I was annoyed. I didn't need advice from a man with an egg, I needed someone to say go ahead. We didn't talk again. He got off at Khammam and I never saw him after that. I called the builder on Saturday and asked for 3 more days. He said no, then yes, then no again. Sunday came and I didn't pay. I felt sick about it all day and told nobody. By Wednesday I'd visited the site twice. The water tank was a hole in the ground with a tarp over it. The lift in the brochure had no shaft built yet. I bought a different flat 5 months later. I still think about the egg man. I don't remember his face at all, only the tiffin and the shell in his hand. I never told anyone where I got the 3 day rule from. My sister thinks I came up with it. Now when someone says the offer ends today, I say I'll call you Wednesday. It works about half the time. The other half, I let it go. Nothing bad has happened yet.

If it's good on Sunday it's good on Wednesday, I am writing that on my wall. A stranger on a night bus to Warangal once told me not to sign a lease until I had seen the place in the rain. I did, and the roof leaked in 3 places. A day of waiting costs nothing and saves a lot. What happened with the Kompally flat in the end?

An old lady at a bus stop in Secunderabad, around 2015. I was complaining to my friend about exams.