By MURIMI MWANGI
Residents of Kamuiru town in Kirinyaga central were recently treated to an entertaining spectacle, when an elderly woman stormed into a bar and caused a scene embarrassing his son whom she caught attempting to trade her stolen cock with frothy drinks.
The man, a former Mathematics and Social studies teacher at a nearby private academy, had been dubbed (DDO) a daily drinking officer by locals after quitting his job. He allegedly pinched his aging mother’s cockerel and rushed to a nearby pub — baada ya kazi — where he was to sure to meet a client.
An eyewitness who spoke to this writer said that the shrewd man swaggered into the bar with the cockerel firmly tucked under his armpit and perched atop a long stool, next to the counter, otherwise known as “Sina Taabu” section by regula patrons.
He ordered a couple of bottles of beer on credit with a promise to pay once the deal was done.
“He held the squealing cockerel throughout as he guzzled down his drinks and laughed heartly with fellow patrons who he kept sweet-talking to buy his cock” recounted the witness.
Around him were his newfound thirsty hangers-on who kept rubbing hands in glee as they anxiously waited for the grand sale in anticipation to the throat-irrigation spree. Minutes later, a drunk patron sauntered near him, critically assessed the cock and in his drunken stupor managed to mumble: “Unaudha hii njogo? Besha chigana (are you selling this cock, and if so how much)?” DDO excitedly answered in the affirmative, “ehh naudha, nipe tathka ama prithna mbiri tumarithane (yes I am, just get me two bottles of tusker or pilsner we close the sale)”. Just when they had launched into haggling proper, his mum who had gotten wind of the scam arrived at the scene, seething with rage.
Shocked friends and revellers, not to be associated with him, diffused in the crowd, as others pretended to be dancing to the mugithi music that had rent the airwaves.
“So you have decided I won’t rear my chicken in peace huh!” barked the irate mother as she slapped around her son on the face, landing him to the cemented floor.
The scared cockerel let out deafening squeals, as the angry mum grabbed it from her son. She proceeded to thump her son, with anything in sight letting out the most denigrating insults on him.
An area resident who spoke to Crazy Monday claimed that DDO had increasingly become bad news, of late. He alleged that barely a week earlier, he had slashed his mother’s green maize and sold it as cattle fodder to a nearby livestock keeper.