Christmas and Guests

As a kid, there were only two occasions that I looked forward: Christmas and the days that guests came. Christmas happened once a year, and spaced too far between, leaving a vast and expansive field of days in which to expect visitors. They didn’t come often, but when they did, mother would prepare them tea and put an unusually high amount of sugar in it. Maybe she always wanted to prove that we were ballers, sugar-wise.  Also, mother exercised an extraordinary amount of restraint by not even pinching us. But when the last guest left….

There were no phones those days, at least a small part of my childhood. Phones at time competed with an eighth of an acre of a plot in prime areas. And so visitors came impromptu. As if to compensate for their unexpected arrival, they came bearing gifts. It was mainly a kilogram or two of sugar, a packet of tea leaves, and, if they were richer, a loaf of bread-family bread. The bread especially ensured that we kids never forgot their coming, made even richer by our fights of who would eat the upper and the lower slices.

Sometimes we’d predict that visitors would come when chicken fought. You could wonder how we knew about this really important prediction mechanism. We overheard mother once saying so when two hens, I presume in the teenage-hood and craving the attention of the hunk cock, fought. That’s when it triggered a huge sense of responsibility in us, trying to spot fighting hens. They fought two or three times. Each of these times, to our childish glee, no visitor came.

Those were those days. I believe they were good days. Even the music sung in those days, especially rhumba, has a way of sticking in the mind. The simple fact that you don’t understand a single word makes them even better. There were standards that were never breached. Standards to everything. I will devote time to talk about visiting standards. One of those was that you never showed up at a person’s place empty handed. Maybe the punishment was that you could be struck by lightning on your way back, or something disastrous could happen.

Not these days. The people of this generation don’t understand how protocols enhanced our childhood. They’d rather buy bundles and check how people are living better lives than theirs, make them even more famous especially if they have had their butts chemically enhanced. Perhaps the god of vanity overthrew the god that reminded visitors to take goodies wherever they went, and would be termed as visitors. Or the god that controlled visitor’s minds got choked by the tremendous amount of a cocktail consisting of industrial waste and illicit brew. 

I could be wrong by laying blame to these people who intend to be visitors, and have a positive impact on young kids. I mean all you have to do now is have a swanky game that kids like, and simply hand them your phone when you visit. But then what about us adults, with bills to pay, girls to impress, and basically the ever increasing vanity to look good on these numerous virtual spaces. You have to bring foodstuffs that will last you through your stay. Some people have perfected the art of going for days without eating. That would be troublesome especially if you have a medical condition that makes you eat after every thirty seconds.

It is quite unfortunate to receive a guest who has ulcers. My dimwitted interpretation of the condition, that it is caused by stress, would have made me write a bad word for these visitors, like they are somehow disabled. You know, we are used to a certain unchangeable diet which may not be conducive for your stomachial specifications. We could go a great length such as ensuring you starve so that you can quickly go away, and we resume our routine.

However, you could enhance your stay by bearing gifts. If not just come and create a wife hotspot so that we can bet and search for pictures of naked women on the internet. That way, we won’t forget to, and perhaps wish that you visit often.