food/love/life/film

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Of bovines and best maids. (HA!)

WARNING: Digressions will be rampant and arbitrarily placed throughout the course of this post. Peter! :o)

If you have been reading my blog, you have good taste, and you know that I'm the best maid for my friend's wedding. You should also have been commenting, because how do 196 people follow the blog (you awesome people, you. Much like the author) and like, 10 people max comment? People. People. People. CaMAAAAAAAAAAN. Ok I'm done. No I'm not. How do I make it easier for you to comment? How do I make it juicy for ya? Bribes? Lap dances? World peace? I want to know what you think. It's important to me. *deep, soulful look* A writer writes to write, but also to be appreciated, unless I don't like your comment. HA. :o)

So in accordance with true wedding fashion, it was necessary to receive cows for dowry for the bride-to-be. Why do we give cows? Why do we give anything, really? I won't have a dowry, whether it is 1.2 million (ridiculously calibrated by my pseudo-educated self) or 10 cows. You can't really pay back what your parents did for you anyway, so why bother? Why attempt to bother? Why allude to the fact that your MP-like exorbitance *cough highway robbery cough* is a silly attempt to bother? For something that I can't get a refund on or a guarantee? Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. If you want to give a token, take us all to Zanzibar. Whoop. :o) How much is a cow these days anyway? Duuude. Yeah, definitely Zanzibar. My colleague (:o) was talking in our (cold) office about how your parents obviously did not educate you in the hope that they would be paid back in dowry at a later point. Is that then to say that they would not have taken you to school had you decided to become a nun? Mschw.

Sunday was the cow delivery day. I woke up at 6 to be on time, and of course no one else was. The problem with punctuality is there is never anyone around to appreciate it. We ate and went. I slept all the way, because frankly, road trips are really not my thing. I come from a land far far away where men are men and women...hehehe. (again. If you've been reading the blog.) The valleys and caverns, ditches and plateaus one traverses to get to my roots are have cultivated a healthy dislike for travel that is not air. Train, maybe. Cars? No.

We get there and it begins. The men walk the cows up the hill. We eat. We leave before the rain starts and we're trapped there. Forever. Never to be seen or heard from again. Lost. (HA!)On the way back I notice huge stones jutting out from lofty crags above us. I begin to have fear in my soul that somehow the boulders will break off and crush us into dust. My heart palpitates...and I come to the realization that I am old. No longer can I simply enjoy a road trip. No longer can I pass a bunch of stones without thinking of mortality, or sit in a car with a window wide open and not leap to ideas about nine madmen a-flinging. Age AIN't nothing but a number, damnit. The rave now seems like a gargantuan effort(well, I'm stretching the truth a little to keep the flow going, burram...), an effort to freeze and be overcharged, underclothed and underwhelmed by the number of Supras about.

One of the younger ones at said gathering was required to give a vote of thanks. He did it with a youthfulness and panache that made me regret not being as self-possessed, yet suposedly older and more...knowingy. He reminded me what it meant to just...be yourself, because that's the coolest version of you you could ever hope to imitate. Does that make sense? This is something I need to constantly be reminded about, because secretly, I'm socially awkward. Go figure.

So God never had, like, a childhood? He never learnt how to tie shoelaces, or count till a hundred? Can you imagine God as a toii, figuring out how to mix colours so he could paint the world?

Moral of the story? No cows for me. I'd rather have a cat.

tSN

p.s. AllWoman.

18 comments:

  1. Lap dances!!! see I am already commenting :0) goush how I have missed you and yes I love your pieces nice to know you only want a cat, we'll see how that goes down with your folks

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  2. for Bikozulu:

    I will have one of those lap dances and one world peace please. :-)

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  3. for k3rich:

    lap dances would definitely do the trick. :D

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  4. If I had known, that all I had to do was mention LAP DANCE in a post...at least Biko tried to be selfless lol

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  5. hahahahahahahahaha on the cat.. and the nine men through the open window.. if dowry were rated by education expenditure weh, my mama would have retired awaiting her fat cheque right now

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  6. lapdances well walk for me... very nice piece though!!!

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  7. You are now commenting for yourself...form texts? Defeats the original purpose for wanting comments...sigh. But now I've commented, shoot!

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  8. *From. Another comment. SMH.
    P.S. I've contemplated my mortality on those roads to shags since I was like 10.

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  9. The problem with punctuality is there is never anyone around to appreciate it. _ quotable quote indeed

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  10. @ktchp I, too, am confused. Lol.

    @Abba *sigh* Must there always be hateration? WHERE IS THE LOVE??!! They couldn't comment on the blog for some reason. Si you calm down?

    @giloh thanks. :o)

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  11. Ei!! Chiombe are an important tradition! A man has to work hard to get a girl :-D

    But seriously, it's really just unnecessary expenses. Really. Interesting perspective though.

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  12. You just never asked. We consume and enjoy but now that you have said it, we shall show you love by commenting

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  13. All good stuff..hehehehe...A cat, can't wait for the day...

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  14. Thank you for this post!! Totally agree with the anti-dowry angle. & I'm not biased in spite of my gender...[grin] People say it's supposed to be a sign of gratitude but it's kind of retarded (wow, I've never insulted so many people at once) to ask the person who's being appreciative for a 'thanks' with a 6/7/8-figure price tag attached. Negotiable or otherwise. That's just a business transaction.

    LOLz on the unnecessary supras!

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  15. @thebnguy I totes wasn't going to say you were biased. At all. Mhm. :o)(retardation is a strong word. Just saying.)

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  16. hey I recently came across your blog (during my online shenanigans) and would love to speak to you about starting one. Any ideas?

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  17. @Kemunto Hey. :o) Sure. Wanna e-mail me? theepicherself@yahoo.com.

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