So Fernando Torres quit on us. Good riddance to bad rubbish, like a friend of mine likes to say. Actually not. Torres is the kind of player you can’t replace and we will miss him terribly.

God knows how many more storms a club can weather. I blame moves like these on the shameful commercialization of the beautiful game. 50 million pounds! Where do these clubs get that kind of money? And where’s the loyalty anyway? This should be like marriage where partners should stay faithful to each other.

You don’t divorce your husband when a hot guy moves in next door.
Well, at least Torres had the good sense to avoid the other two teams whose names I will not mention for obvious reasons.

And unlike some fans who went ahead to burn their replica jerseys, I will continue to celebrate his goals (but not team wins) because I can’t suddenly "dump” him the way he did my team. I wonder what percentage of the transfer cash the players get to keep.

Whatever it is, it must be tempting to lure these already overpaid players away from their clubs and legions of fans, don’t you think?
Away from football, Jane asked me to increase my contribution towards rent. No, I didn’t get a pay rise, nor do I have guests staying over.

In my mind, I was thinking, okay you’d still pay all the rent by yourself if I wasn’t here, so why are you giving me a hard time? However, I will just pay up because I don’t want to get into any arguments, not now at least.

This scenario got me thinking about Jane’s friend who had promised to let me stay with her. I tried to get in touch with her but her phone is almost never on and the few times I get through, she comes across as evasive."I’m busy” or "I will call you back” are all the responses I get. Of course she never calls back.

Does she even have room at her house, I wonder. I really don’t like people who make empty promises because they give you false hope, and once you get excited about something, the disappointment is hard to deal with.

The other person who’s not in my good books right now is a friend I met a few years ago. He travels a lot, mostly out of the country and that’s how we met. Now I’m very particular about certain things I use and I also have this brand loyalty thing.

If I like a certain product, I’ll stick to it for years. I’ve used the same toothpaste, lotion and deodorant for as long as I can remember and before I came here over a year ago, I made sure I stocked ample supplies of these.

They eventually got used up and none of the supermarkets or shops here had these specific products. That’s when I asked my traveller friend to help me buy some from Kampala or Nairobi.

He brought the items alright, but made me pay dearly. I had set aside a certain amount I thought would cover the cost but he made me pay close to three times more, saying the prices had risen.

I couldn’t refute this since he didn’t have a receipt. And just then, I saw those small price tags that supermarkets attach to products. He had ripped the bigger part of these off so I wouldn’t see the price. But on one of the boxes, the first figure remained and I couldn’t help thinking how stupid he is. It reminded me of students who would alter their report cards, changing an F to a B or E but then forget that there were teachers’ remarks contradicting that.

If you’re going to rip someone off, at least be smart about it. I decided against pointing this out and gave him the said amount. But I vowed that would be the last time I sent him for anything.

To be continued...