THE BLUE TICKS OF DIGITAL SNOBBERY

Let’s say you miss person X and decide to send them a message on Whatsapp. A few minutes later person X receives your text as evidenced by the blue ticks on the corner of your message. You eagerly await a response from this X, person X, as you watch your favorite medieval drama while sipping masala tea and chomping down a brown chapatti. The drama soon ends and you have to go to sleep for tomorrow is Monday and you don’t want to spend three hours in traffic like a Rongai local.

You get to work the next day and still nothing. At lunch, you see person X is online, probably chatting it up with everyone else but you. I’m sure they saw the text. Night comes and you wonder if the blue ticks really mean that the recipient has read the incoming message. Heck you go though the trouble of rechecking what the blue ticks means. Better be sure than jump into conclusions and get your cholesterol high.

After days of scanning through your messages for a response you still have nothing. On the weekend, you bump into person X at Koroga or Blankets and Wine and somewhere beyond the expected pleasantries they hit you with “I thought I replied...I’ve been so busy” or even, “I don’t know how I didn’t see your message.” If you can relate, you too are a victim of digital snobbery.

It’s rather embarrassing to go through. You imagine person X walking around with their nose high, bragging to their friends on how much action they get on their chats, walls, inboxes and timelines. You soon realize you may or may not have the power to demand an explanation. If you do ask, you look petty or desperate. If you don’t, you sentence yourself to a big loss and give person X the upper hand. What’s worse is this - the larger your ego, the harder it is to make this decision.

I hate to break it to you but there is no such thing as “I thought I replied”, no such thing as “I don’t know how I didn’t see your message.” These are empty phrases designed to assuage ones ailing ego. Not that person X cares so much as to worry themselves with the condition of your soul but out of a moderate sense of civility, they let you down, softly.

To the victims of this inevitable vice, I feel for you. Things were a lot more direct in the days of old. It wasn’t too hard to guess that someone was just not interested in your words. There were no blue ticks to let you know how important (or not) you were to someone. There were few grey areas that were left to your hyperactive powers of deduction and imagination. Not like today, when silence means many more things than a reply. Damn those blue ticks.

The Day Mama Said Shi*

I don’t know 'bout ya mama but ma mama don’t say stuff like that.

I could tell you the number of times I’d be flipping in my duvet and for a second of consciousness hear enough to make out mama’s voice binding devils in the dead of night. She would bind them, roast them, dice them and send them back like the little wimps they were. I’m sure those imps scampered right back into the abyss the moment she opened her mouth to pray. This powerful woman could do no wrong in my eyes. That explains why every affront against her was rightfully returned with compounded violence.

Even so, being raised by this gracious angel of mine had its compromises. There was little room to be as insolent as some of my friends were. In fact, the height of my disobedience was listening to Kiss FM countdown on the weekends and boy did I feel I was I living dangerously. She had warned us that secular music was a violation worthy of a rear visitation from ‘the belt’. Still, the allure of Ja Rule and Ashanti turned me into a covert spy, say James Bond, sneaking into the secret lab (parent’s room) to access the weapon of mass contagion (radio) which contained classified, mind-altering technology (music) which I often downloaded onto a secure drive (tape). Those were the days when music was worth an ass-whopping. Funny, now all music talks about is ass-shaking.

She still did her best to keep us on that straight and narrow. She hauled us to Sunday school, put us in Christian schools, the whole 9 yards. I now remember being mad at God that I didn’t get chosen as part of the CU committee at my high school – all my siblings were. Maybe it was the T-Pain song I stealthily nodded my head to during entertainment night that disqualified me from a high seat at the temple. It surely couldn’t have been the girls. As a matter of fact, what girls? My classmates called me King Breeze reasons I will not elaborate. I am yet to heal.

It is in this brilliant light of invincibility that my lady dropped a bomb on us.

It happened years ago on a Saturday when our dogs followed my father into the house, painting a gorgeous paw mural on the pearly kitchen tiles. When mum checked in, I knew there was bound to be trouble. First of all, the dirty breakfast dishes were still untouched at 3pm. Strike one. Next, she noticed the fresh, mud artwork gracing her floor. My lady was not happy at all. Strike two. The final whistle came when she popped into the living room and saw three wet mutts playfully hovering around her husband like flies at a busy latrine. Stamping on the floor she belted out a four letter word that she’s never said again to this day.

Did we all freeze to alert her on the unspeakable she just let slip? Did we let it slide like when someone you respect farts and you pretend like the sewage line must have burst? I can’t seem to remember that part very well. The heft of my angel’s utterance was too big a file to save anything else from that day. That was the day mama said shi*.

25 and Dependent

Birthdays don’t mean much to me. It’s because I believe that pastries should be enjoyed as often as one can afford, religiously accompanied by a rich brew of dark roast coffee. Furthermore, shouldn’t friends hang out more than once a year, worse off when they assemble mainly to protect themselves from withdrawing from a ‘Favour Bank’ they haven’t deposited enough in? While we’re at it, someone remind me why we need to drink sodas on special days again? Hold an event without that sinister elixir of sugar, colour and acidic preservatives and you can kiss your place on the best birthday/wedding event goodbye. It’s so assimilated into our culture that when someone say’s they’re going to buy you a ‘ka-soda,’ we light up with anticipation like it’s a good thing.

All this was aroused by my 25^th birthday last weekend. With it came the somber realization that my temporal locus just slightly tilted towards 30. I was at first tempted to celebrate the dent I had made on a quarter century with a feast fit for a Norse god after conquering the Kraken. Only when I remembered I was a jobless, homeless (some say living with parents – same difference), 25 year old male did my halcyon days appear undeserving of revels. I felt I needed more to celebrate. Say a hot girlfriend or a blue Subaru with a loud exhaust or even better, a one million shilling bonus from Chris Kirubi.

Well, my small sister would have none of this. She jumped at my first thought to hallow the birthday, likely because she knew the next chance of me celebrating another another was 5 years away. That, ladies and gentlemen, is why I obliged.

Come to think of it, she’s a real planner. She’s the kind that obsesses over details like which side of the house the chairs should be set up. Is it the side with the garden or the side with the shade or maybe the side with more space or sensibly the one nearest to the kitchen? I just bathed in the glory of her acute excitement over a birthday that wasn’t hers. Girls are so strange, right?

Did I mention I am jobless? The politically correct term would be job seeking which is what I do when I’m not in school pursuing a master in something everyone already knows how to do – communication. But to celebrate a jobless, dependent, 25 year old single man (see how the single makes me look miserable) is like spitting on a forest fire hoping to quench its thirst and God would not have his son so embarrassed. That is why I was invited by a top tier firm to take an aptitude test for their annual recruitment a few days prior to the festivity. Yes! At least now we could celebrate a potentially employed but, for now, dependent 25 year old single man.

Needless to say, I am thankful and not just for a promising opportunity to change my status. Those who showed up to the party were all fervent in their estimation of my eminent success. They reminded me that sometimes, we need not only to celebrate our achievements but also the very chance to achieve. True, there’s no need for work in the grave but to be on this side of eternity is a blessing that many past souls would die to relive. I just hope the job comes sooner than 30.

PLEASE DON’T BANG MY DOOR!

I’ve had it up to here!

This Mr. Nice Guy act never pays off. Never. How it had me hoping and believing that people are different and I shouldn’t generalize or let the sun go down on my anger. But I’ve had way too much experience with gents and dames, wannabe’s and proper’s to throw them all in one basket.

Take the most recent of such gestures that turned mistake. I had walked out from a rather grueling final – the type that makes you want to hire a ninja assasin to take out the descendants of whoever it is who invented school. I figured I could cool off by engaging with my equally traumatized colleagues and whine in unison over the exam. Just as I headed for the door, a lady acquaintance perceived I was driving and asked for a lift. 

My first thought was how muddy the floor mats were – it’s a Probox, its expected right? My second thought calculated the distance to her desired destination. A bearable 10 minutes of conversation would be my contribution to humanity today. Mr.Nice Guy prevailed and I obliged.

We pulled out of school and headed towards her destination. Those floor mats were worse than I thought. Is that a weed sprouting?

It was a Saturday afternoon and the traffic gods had favored me and my small engine by clearing the roads ahead of us. We arrived 4 minutes earlier than I had thought. The chat wasn’t too bad either. Then began the customary thank you and welcome as I pondered on the feasibility of a driving back to Kitengela on my empty stomach.

She opened the door and grabbed her bag. Almost there boys, anytime now and we’ll be smashing into a cheese burger and ketchup-smothered fries. She let out one last goodbye, smiled and then, almost in a dubiously calculated affront on my emotions, slammed the door with every pound of flesh on her bone.

Some type of paralysis set in. What the hell had just happened? I slowly glanced at the window expecting to see a crack straight down the middle like a Thorian bolt from Azgaurd.

Maybe she noticed her attempt at destroying my (mothers) automobile and was coming back to apologize. I caught sight of the offender joyfully trotting across the road like a hippie towards her nirvana. I just sat there for a while, the only way I knew to console Paula (that’s her name) after her aggressor almost maimed her. There and then, soaking in a juice of fury and confusion, I swore never to give anyone a lift again.

To be honest with you, the juices did drain after I shoved some fast food down. In fact, I gave a couple people a lift the following week. Something did, however, change. I was no longer an optimistic Mr. Nice Guy. Oh no, that died when I unwillingly confronted the myth that women aren’t as physically strong as men. That girl almost had me driving a heap of scrap metal. I’ll still give lifts when asked to but this time, I make sure, right before my passengers thank me for being such a nice guy, to say as firmly and direct as I can, “Please don’t bang my door!”