Not all advice is good advice!

A few years ago, I was a jobless girl with no bank account except for the one I had opened when joining campus. I am not sure if it would be in order to say I was a 'Stay at home Mom' considering I was dating this single father who was one of these people we call 'mkono birika'.

The only time his hands exchanged money was when he was moving it from his shirt pocket to his trousers. Because of this, I got fed up asking for money from him and decided to venture into business, at least to earn my own dollars.

At first, I had wanted to sell second hand clothes bought from the famous Gikomba market but my friend Maggie convinced me otherwise. She introduced me to a 'much better' business.

Even though I had just enough money to start the second hand clothes business, my greed led me to abandon it and venture into this other lucrative business Maggie had introduced me to.

It involved buying green maize from rural areas and bringing it all the way to the city to make a killing.

Before I knew it, I had contacted my ex and asked him for capital for that business and because he was in love with me back then, he quickly sent me the said amount. The following week, Maggie and I were off to the western part of the country in a truck to buy the maize.

We travelled overnight and by morning, we had started moving from one homestead to another buying the maize at a throw away price. It took us a whole day to fill the truck and we immediately hit the road back to the city to make it at dawn and become instant 'moguls'.

We knew no one in that business. Actually, we were just hoping that our truck would be the first to get to Marikiti market.

There we were squeezed in-between the driver and the turnboy on our way back. It was all well until we were halfway when the truck stalled. It stalled right in the middle of nowhere and since it was late in the night, we all decided to stay put and wait for any help to arrive.

No help came and our efforts to flag down any car were futile. To cut the long story short, by the next day afternoon, we were still on the same spot and the sun was literally burning us. By the time the driver finished working on his truck, it was way past midnight and off we left the place headed for Marikiti.

We got to Marikiti the next day around midday and were more than willing to sell our maize half the price we had anticipated because of the lateness. We all know fresh maize needs proper storage and without that, we were bound to run into losses.

I remember our truck reversing towards the gate of Marikiti and buyers flocking it as brokers shouted the price for us.

Maggie and I got out of the truck and stood two meters away as we smiled at how much we were going to make as profit. Just then the turnboy opened the rear of the truck, let me just say I have never mourned food more than a human being like I did on that day.

Immediately the back was opened, hot air hit us from within and fumes emerged from inside as buyers started laughing and calling up everyone to come with tea and have a late breakfast!

Lo and behold, during the time that our truck had stalled, the sun had practically boiled all the maize! You should have seen commotion at Marikiti as vendors rushed to have a look at our boiled maize! A whole truck! Not even a single maize cob survived...and that my friend, is how I moved from grace to grass within seconds because of greed.