I hit the ground running. If I am lucky, it gives me the head start on everyone else. If I am unlucky, I stumble and hit my nose on the ground. And in my thirty odd years on this planet, I have lived both outcomes often enough - the latter more than the former. Which can't be good news for my nose that, for the record, has always been more Kabaka Mwanga-ish (long live the King) than Kagame-like.

Take last Saturday, for example. The boys and I are in the middle of our usual swallowship at Rock Garden. I have no idea what time it is. Whenever I go for swallowship, I leave my Oris chronometer in the car. You see, I share a compound with my landlady - a very nasty woman - who practices this strange religion requiring her to close the gates on the stroke of midnight.

Trouble is, we share the same gate. And her religion also prohibits her from giving me a copy of the gate key. As a result, I can't enjoy the one in the green bottle, as I have to keep glancing at my chrono for worry of missing the holy deadline of midnight.

Solution? Leave the time machine in the car and you will never know that the holy hour is approaching. If you return to the car and find that the blockade has already kicked in, you simply return to the bar and order for a few more of those lovely green bottles. At least you have a perfect excuse, you didn't know it was so late.

Anyway, as I was saying, I didn't know what time it was. But judging from Al Haji Diof's animated voice, night dancers must have been on their way back home already. You can roughly tell how far in the night it is from Diof's voice. The more the night wears on, the more intense his voice becomes. This Diof is, of course, not the real thing. But rather like the original Senegalese/Liverpool Diof, he has the habit of mesmerising players in the opposing dress with his dribbling skills without really burying the ball in the net. Only that we are not talking football here, if you know what I mean...

Where was I? Yes, we are in the middle of our swallowship when this Muzungu model, in the minutest (I know the word doesn't exist) of miniskirts, whizzes past us to the counter and orders a drink. Medium height, slender, long blonde hair, shapely legs, the works.

She is so electrifying that even the irrepressible Diof stops mid-sentence with his jaw dropping. She turns around facing us, but not really looking at us and my, isn't she some dish. She is wearing a tight T-shirt with the words "Player 69" printed across the front that is clearly struggling to keep her knockers in place. The message in the words was not lost on me.

I could see Diof was mentally composing some lines to launch an offensive in her direction. Without even thinking what I was going to say, I quickly walked up to her and said the first thing that popped into my head: "Hi, are you by any chance the princess of England?"

She turned, stared at me, sized me up and dismissed me in Oxford English "There's no such a thing as princess of England." If you think I felt stupid, you don't know me. Offering my hand, I tried another one: "I am Wangy, how do I become an exclusive player on your team? I can play well in the 6-9 formation, you know..."

"What?" She was horrified. If she had thought I was stupid, she must now be thinking I am nuts. Affecting what I considered to be a funky demeanour, and pasting the sharpest smile on my face, I pointed at the print on her T-shirt.

She looked at it hard, as if reading the words for the first time. She smiled as the suggestiveness of the phrase dawned on her.

"Oh, that! The implication never crossed my mind. By the way, I am Cindy..." she said, offering her hand. The rest, as they say, is history. Only that there is a whole story to this particular history. But then, we should keep that for next week, shouldn't we?

Be first to comment this article

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.

Powered by AkoComment Tweaked Special Edition v.1.4.4