Tuesday, September 13, 2011

growing pains

Baby brawl
I had the task of baby sitting my one year old sister- this little bundle of joy that never smiles- and really learnt a great deal of stuff I always took for granted. For instance, not all kids are easy to please, my ‘goochi goos’ work like magic on others but only meet half eyed cold stares from this little monster. This is before she breaks into this teary squeal like she is about to get butchered. In fact, she prefers punching, kicking and tearing off my hair as a favorite pastime that I helplessly comply with lest she falls back into her nerve wrecking tantrums.



LESSON 1: Changing a diaper
      To be honest, mom made this feat look easy and I did not even dwell on the specifics until my moment of reckoning came. Putting it on was the easy part because all the three steps were on the ‘Pampers’ package, though at first I fitted them inside out. I’m done securing it when I feel some warm lump on her bum and I’m like, “oh no you didn’t!” and she is like, “Nye Nye Nye” which is baby for, ‘oh yes I did!’ pampers should seriously consider adding a step 5 and 6 for removing the darn thing because I ended up covered in baby profanities all over my face and t-shirt. I have officially filed a complaint and I’m suing them in court.

LESSON 2: Baby lingo
      We all know babies do not speak nothing, they just do it, taking the adage actions are better than words quite literarily so to speak. When Nduks wants to piss, she just sets her self loose and bawls like I’m the one who did it. In case she was roaming around the house and there is some eerie quiet, that girl is up to something terrible. I’ve come to master the calm before the storm because there is nothing as creepy as warm piss trickling down your back, into your shorts to your legs.

LESSON 3: Feeding kids
      Oh yeah, seems easy but they do not like food but prefer eating dirt, garbage and especially anything on the ground that can fit in their oral cavities. Sadly, they do not discern that they are hungry and thus come the task of forcefully shoveling it down their throats. I find it a little bit extreme but we do not want Nduks starving to death now do we? The whole ordeal leaves a huge mess that needs washing her and thoroughly cleaning the battle field and not forgetting me.

LESSON 4: Love drug
      It takes more than guts of steel to stand the stress of raising a child but just a dose of love and patience completes the equation. It beats me how my mom managed to raise all three rowdy boys and one silent daughter without strangling any of us to death and I now have much more respect and love for her. To all mothers, like Beyonce says, you run this world and we just live in it.


The whole experience ultimately made me know that I will never ever get hitched, not now, not tomorrow and not in a million years. I do not want my wife to labor with kids just because I asked her to be my sleeping partner till we die but heck if she wants; I’m prepared to give her a perpetual pregnant matrimony.

of boys and girls

WOES OF BEING A GENTLEMAN
I was just walking along when I spotted this damsel in distress and being the lam that I am, yours truly was obliged- albeit half heartedly, to come to the rescue and save the day. Well, it was a pretty sorry sight as the lady tried to salvage her books from the ground, struggling to stay upright on her wobbly high heels all the while making a futile effort to conceal her precious cargo from the passing public.
I have to admit as a matter of fact that she was undeniably a beauty. Anyway, the miniskirt, which was more of a scarf I should say, provoked the attention of any normal man’s prying eyes to attempt getting a glimpse of the hidden treasures underneath. Her bosom’s occupants were really feeling the pinch of real estate scarcity as the top was clearly fashioned as a cost cutting measure. It seemed her tenants would pop out at the slightest intrusion, what with her distressing efforts to bend over in very precarious positions at the same time juggling with the weave that was constantly blocking her view.
To add salt to injury, the morning draft was scattering her papers all over the place. Out of sheer pity and a little chivalrous heart, I went out of my way to chase the damn papers across the football pitch, over a fence and into some thickets. Our damsel just stood there looking pretty, impatiently twitching her heel while making a very important call about making a seat reservation in class but I did not mind at that moment, until now. When her little serf was done, the young miss just stuffed the papers in her huge purse and left.
Oh yes, not even a pat on the back, let alone a teeny weenie smile or a much deserved ‘thank you’ but evidently where women come from, you do not get thanked for doing your job. Even dogs get treats when they play fetch but I settle for a cold dissertation and a hurt conscience for the troubles I go through when trying to be nice for a change but it gets mistaken for a petty cry for affection. Whenever a guy tries to help a pretty lady out, it is as if there is this huge banner on his torso shouting “HOOT! HOOT! Watch out, Hopeless romantic coming through!”

Price tags


You probably think this is another annoying rant about oil prices, the hullabaloo of how life is harsh and how we are doomed to be chained to our ignorance. That issue has been so over done leaving a murky if not soar after-taste in your breath. The issue is much closer home, tickling your bosom, subdued by your ego and seldom talked about. It often bugs you how far you would go to get that something you badly need when the opportunity presents itself, your dignity at stake. You will literally knock your socks off at the wonders you are capable of doing.
As you prance around acting up to societal proclivity, you have a charge on your forehead and when you get bought, so to speak, the mask comes off and you are like the phoenix, reborn doing things unimaginable. For instance, if I offered you five million to walk stark naked from the library to Muliro Garden, you will probably sneer and question on how cheap I think you are. Okay, what if we raised it a notch higher, say around fifty billion? Right, I thought so too, but tarry a while, what will your mother say, yes, even if it was a charity march?
Some wise somebody once held that money cannot buy love, well it seems he was mistaken or perhaps we can blame it on the novelty of money in their time. For all I know in our day, it is all about the riches, the big black cars and chasing all those stars that we never really grapple in the end. At the right price, a segment of our species will lay out their wares for auction plied with a few drinks and a couple of gifts all in the name of love. Pardon my incursion nevertheless I do not think them as cheap and lowly as you may presume, they are the most demanding, unforgiving humans I know.
The fee surrendered really need not be for all the wrong dissolute reasons and most times it is for very noble and distinguished grounds. Case in point, you have to shell out dearly for more than two decades to seize that all so important education and ultimately get a hold of that dream job. It is a constant struggle, because even after you obtain it, you have to forfeit long hours in the office to climb the social hierarchy. Sadly, most of us never attain that bliss we relentlessly hound after until you drop dead and the eulogy ironically articulates that the poor soul lived a full life.
It seems like everybody has price, I wonder how they sleep at night when the sale comes first and the truth comes second. Why is everybody so serious acting so damn mysterious with shades on your eyes and your heels so high that you cannot even have a good time? It is not always about the money or the bling; happiness will never be traded in the stock market but I guess our rationale and self value have all been sold out. Nonetheless, true as the anecdote of self worth, dignity and what others think of our ways may be, the privilege of a life well lived is in fact being yourself.

crossroads


Sited in the middle of the room alone, is the poor soul hunched in despair, swaddled in tangled thoughts waiting, staring blindly into darkness creeping in through the windows. It crawls onto the huge dining table, swallowing the chairs and couch in its wake like some evil, hungry monster slithering towards its feeble prey.

 Tick tock of the clock resonates over the cold brick walls growing louder with each passing second creating an ominous buzz in his ears but he is stuck in time, immobilized by the weight of lost years heavy in his heart. Sickening nausea wells up deep down in victim’s throat drowning all hope as cold nostalgia chills his person to the bone.

Sinking into self inflicted misery like quicksand, only faster with no hanging bough to hold onto, he suffocates with every bated breath inhaled. He was on an all important quest to find himself but he got lost on the way with no G.P.S locator or any good old pathways to lead him home and thing is, this he has no idea where to start neither does he know where his expedition leads.