A Phone Charger Willfully Left Behind

As part of my mission to write something seemingly intellectual (or lack thereof), I will teach you a very important life skill: never ever deliberately forget your phone charger because you don’t want to remove your shoes. Who would do that, you may ask rolling your eyes in a manner that says ‘what is he saying?’

I’ll tell you who would do that. Me. I belong to a long lineage of self-respecting men who do not subject themselves to dull indignities of abiding by a sick and twisted tradition (by which I mean invented by women) of removing shoes before entering a house. I’ll only do that when entering a ‘shrine’ because the blessings from a ‘shrine’ are worth any indignities.

Unlike you, a phone is not a valuable companion. A simple click and your whereabouts are revealed. I am not a criminal, but as a wannabe fugitive, that’s not something I would want. Being unreachable does not bother me anymore. Your woman would still think you are busy shanking another of her species even when you are in the ICU. While fighting for your life, you will get a thousand messages insulting your very existence. Ptoh! Fear women.

I was told to remove my shoes. I squinted at them closely because I almost bought them twice the price if the hawker could hold them for me and I decidedly said, ‘ptoh! If I ‘remove’ them I am dead.’ These shoes aren’t grand in any sense but they communicate to me a vital lesson of survival: ‘good things might pass you by when you are not ready.’ And then I again decidedly said, ‘a mere charger!!!” I wasn’t right in the head and I was ready and off I left.

And now I have to use chargers that only work at specific angles of elevation, 34.89 degrees Celsius, specific time of day and probably its mood, which has veto power. It means if the charger is not in the right mood, it won’t work even if you summon your ancestors in alphabetical order. I hate this charger. It has a couple of sisters – I don’t know if chargers identify as women but why not risk – who have also conspired with it. One discharges and the other gives the following info ’66 hours till full.’ I don’t desperately need a phone but waiting for a decade is a no.

In the meantime, I have to coax the working charger, threaten to cheat with its other sisters, and chant libations at the same time. But these chargers are goddamn resolute. It takes persistence, patience and every other word ever conjured by motivational speakers such as Atwoli.

My phone has to be on somehow, just in case I receive those texts that say, ‘hey mom, nilipoteza calculator. Tuma pesa kwa hii no. 008t3663545.’ These messages are close to those romantic messages you receive when your purported woman has realized her ‘main’ is cheating on her with his ‘main’ and has officially promoted you to the ‘main.’ I dare not miss them because there is nobody to miss these days. As such, there is no other viable option of wasting Safaricom’s text messages I occasionally receive when I purchase data bundles.