Of Idiots & Pick-up Lines

So the other day I was walking the short distance from a supermarket to my home in the evening after work. It had been a tough day and I was just generally tired and in need of my warm bed and the opportunity to flip the pages of the thrilling book I had been reading.

As I walked along, my mind lost in my own thoughts and listening to music from my phone through earphones, I became aware of a vehicle that was crawling along beside me. Realising that the guy behind the wheel was trying to get my attention, I unplugged my ears ready to give directions to whatever place he was looking for.

"You look tired," was his opening line and I thought to myself 'Oh brother'.

"That's beacause I am," I said.

"I bought some chicken for dinner today," was his second statment. "Why don't you come along and we could share the meal together?"

I mean really! What kind of pick up line is that? In what parallel universe would some poor damsel be so thrilled as to receive an invitation for chicken (which by the looks of the guy she might have had to cook) that she'd jump into a stranger's car, poverty notwithstanding. Is this what the Kenyan woman searching for a relationship has to contend with? Really! Needless to say I got rid of him through one brief statement but as I walked along I shook my head in wonder.

I have chicken! Eish!

Of Abattoirs and Sanitation Ministers

Sometime back, say around 1999, the powers that be, presumably parliamentarians, thought it wise to enact a law governing environmental issues in this country. And so it was that the National Enviroment Management Authority (NEMA) came to be and I think that the whole set up is generally a good idea.

So it was that NEMA, in carrying out its statutory duties, gave notice to 5 abattoirs in the Dagoretti area to get their act together or get shut down. Upon the expiry of the notice 3 months later, when not enough had been done, the 5 were shut down. Good no? I mean, if you had seen those places on the tele you may wish to sooner become a vegetarian than eat their meat ever again. Those guys wear long thick gum boots because they wade in calf deep filthy murky water (I don't want to imagine meat falling in and just being retrieved and sold at my local butchery). Then there are those scavenger birds that eat to their fill, piles of waste ... *shudder* yuck!

Anyhoo, the Dagoretti MP, who just so happens to be the Minister for Public Health and Sanitation, in a very public show visited these abattoirs and declared that NEMA ought not to have closed them down in the manner they did and should in fact have given them some time to clean up adding that a lamentable 10,000 people were rendered jobless by the closure.

I sit back, scratch my head and wonder. Madam Waziri, is it your stand that the Ministry of Public Health AND SANITATION would rather that Kenyans were poisoned by contaminated meat than 10,000 jobs be temporarily lost? Is it your stand that 3 months notice is not notice at all? Is it your stand that NEMA, which was quite frankly only doing its job, should watch itself in its zeal of undertaking its duties in your constituency?

Real bad show.

Of Inappropriate Office Tunes and Mannerisms

So, yesterday afternoon a new guy joins our office. I must have been out when he was doing the introductory round as I missed it. So I wonder who he is and what he does, but that doesn't get me too wound up as I'm very busy. Not more than 30 minutes after the guy has been seated opposite me (yeah ... open plan offices) he starts to whistle. Who reports to work and on their first day starts whistling? But that's not even the worst of it. What is the guy whistling ... wait for it ... "I like the way you do me, do me ... do me I do you ..."!

"What really is the world coming to?" I ask myself. What happened to the good old days when the work place was a serious place where respect for those around you meant that you kept the extraordinary aspects of your life to yourself? A little stiff perhaps but you know ... sturdy. I sighed, gathered my thoughts and went back to work.

Then his phone rang ... You guessed it. The full uncensored version "Do me, do me, do me, do me ..." The junguz in the office turned some deep shade of fuchsia pink!