Today’s Loose Talk was a near no-show. I had almost given up on penning (or in this case –keyboarding) one because that elusive mosquito that we call inspiration had refused to land on my skin this time.

This could possibly mean many things, the first being that this Loose Talk is likely to be shorter than usual.

Inspiration, of course is a mosquito. What did you think? Inspiration is a mosquito that must be violently slapped and smothered to the skin before it takes off. It is now, now, now … or never. However since it’s elusive and slippery, inspiration usually flies off and into the next man’s mind before you have harnessed it.

In the worst case scenario, this inspirational mosquito will land on your epidermis, do what a mosquito does whenever it finds free parking on succulent human skin, and then fly off for a siesta in one of its choice habitats without the blood donor that is its victim even realizing it.

This is what happened to me that I almost failed to put anything together worth you, the readers’ time.

Of course I had to man up and face the editor as the clock ticked closer to the deadline. I explained my predicament to him. I argued that at his age and level of experience, the editor ought to know already that one just can’t milk a cow without feeding it. I told him I was hungry and needed three thick, fresh samosas plus a bottle of Agashya passion fruit juice from Sina Gerard’s Urwibutso Enterprise in Nyirangarama if I was to pull this off. I also asked for a new energy drink from Pombe Magufuli’s Tanzania that comes in a cute little blue bottle and whose price is gentle on low income earners like I.

I’m not very sure about its name but I think it’s called Azam.

Immediately the editor agreed to my demands, I quickly convinced him that since we had now ventured all the way to Tanzania for a cheap energy drink in a cute little blue bottle, why not finish what we started and also include another popular product from Magufuli-land; Konyagi?

And that was the only part of my request that wasn’t granted. I asked the editor what was so bad about Konyagi, and he simply pointed me to his wrist-watch –reminding me the time was still ‘too young’ for hard liquor.

In anger and frustration, I asked him; "What time do throats open?”