Tuesday

Today I received Stii-from-afrigator’s response to my rant. Thanks Stii!

Yesterday I was playing a little word game, as you do to pass the time. I’d promised Mama Shujaa I’d employ the use of ‘tabasamu’ (‘smile’ in Swahili) somewhere in conversation. So when I popped into the fridge and planted a can of the real thing before my colleague Sheila I said, ‘Have a coke and a tabasamu!’ She looked at me expectedly. I guessed she thought I was also offering something ‘tamu’ (sweet) such as a cookie. Later during a meeting with a client who visited our office I thought I’d throw in one of the new words that I’ve invented. So while going over t&c’s I ventured, ‘…and we never dibulge our sources.’ Prospective client didn’t bat mascaraed eyelash, but once again Sheila of the owlic hearing stopped a left blink in midfall as if to ask what’s going on. Now she thinks she’s hearing things. Earlier in the morning Sheila was telling me about Prison Break which she’d watched and how she absolutely loves Dominic Purcell. OMG please don’t tell me I’m the only one thinking 'DP' for short.

Later we had lunch, just us two. We’re going through a fruit diet phase aka The Purge. Freshly made fruit juices for breakfast, fruit salads for lunch. Sheila brought in the largest strawberries I’ve ever seen, some the size of a baby’s fist! Monsanto encouraged? I pondered as I devoured a pair. Our diurnal piety would earn us dubious rewards of alcohol and cigarettes while watching the football match after work. Sheila took a second bite into a luscious gleaming red apple before scrunching her face, ‘Aaargh it’s rotten inside.’

‘Mmmm,’ I munched away. ‘Unfortunately you can’t tell what they’ll be like inside from the outside.’ Sheila aimed the tainted fruit at the bin’s rim. What a shot!

‘Just like people,’ she said softly. Yeah, just like people I echoed inside my head.