The Wannabes: Whiners should just keep calm

 Keep clam. Photo: Courtesy

My state as I wrote this at 6am on a chilly Monday morning could at best be described as ‘under the weather.’ I had woken up an hour or so earlier with a sore throat, a pain in the chest and aches in the limbs that suggested a nocturnal work out – the way some people only gym in their dreams (unlike our colleague Cate Mukei who, in her Facebook pictures and in hugs, is starting to look and feel alarmingly pumped).

I hoped fervently that the uchungu in the chest wouldn’t become a cough because I had this visa interview later on at some European embassy – one small cough and those mzungus imagine a wannabe has ebola or purple fever or some other exotic African ailment; and you are trying to smuggle some epidemic into their country.

Growing up, my old man, a true blood Kisii called Ontita did not believe in illness. In his world, it was simply non-existent. If you coughed, Ontita simply slapped your back – very hard! As if you had swallowed a fishbone and were choking on it.

Once, when we three kids had caught a bad cold, he lit a big jiko, put a sufuria of water on it, got those old and heavy Raymond blankets (Bolingo will know them), and after stripping us down to our underwear, made us huddle under the Raymonds, and around the sufuria of boiling water, and told us to ‘breathe in deeply of the steam.’

When my mum walked in, she let out a little shriek and said: ‘Baba Tony, are you trying to kill my kids?’

Like those wannabes who have heard of but don’t believe in global warming, Mr Ontita’s brand of wannabeism thought carbon monoxide poisoning was something some idle white person – maybe the expat across the page? – made up.

Then there are people who take the whole thing too far, to the point of being wannabe hypochondriacs.

You find a woman who has got herself (okay, with a little help from a friend) pregnant.

But they act as if they were sentenced to nine months on death row in Kamiti, and are awaiting execution. Morning sickness every morning is accompanied by much moaning every morning.

People around these wannabe expectant mums are expected to bear with all sorts of savage moods, from sunup to sundown, under the wannabe excuse of ‘mimba haikupendi.’ God loves a cheerful giver, yes, but what he loves most is a cheerful 'carrier' (he!he!).

What you want to be is not the wannabe who God loves more. Because if there’s one thing we’ve learned from the obits, it is this – if people love you, but God loves you more, wewe kwisha!

Then these women give birth to wannabe brats – the kind who throw tantrums in supermarket aisles and checkout counters, all the while screaming ‘Muuummmyyy’ at the top of their lungs. Nothing serious there, though, that a good application of the 'belt on beef' will not rectify.

Then there are those fellows, some returned from some Diaspora with disappointments, who make awful wannabe complainers.

It is okay to complain about the dirty state of the CBD, the chokoras and street families, but the diaspora returnee wannabe complains about unruly matatus, loud akorinos and fiery fire churches and dusty roads and still says they stay ‘near Lavi,’ but whaddya expect at the edge of Ungem?

My hero is Harry, the guy who does this column’s brilliant illustrations.

A few weeks ago, the dude had blood poisoning and ended up hospitalized – but he still drew the ‘toon for this piece from his hospital bed. They say ‘ride or die’? I say write till you die.

Other than Harry, Hillary is also my hero. Mrs Clinton was diagnosed with pneumonia one Friday afternoon, did campaigning all Saturday, and on the Sunday of 9-11 commemoration, stood in the heat till she near fainted.

That is why she will land on Trump during Monday’s debate like an attack of acute pneumonia. And Tony Malesi, diehard Trump supporter, will lose his ten grand bet to me. And pay up!

[email protected]