I haven’t had the opportunity to throw a party for a long time thanks to the gymnastics that the National University has got me doing. However, thank goodness, last Friday, I got my chance to throw off the Butare shackles and let my hair down (or whatever hair I have now that I’m having a serious case of a receding hairline). I don’t know any other way of doing all this except by throwing a house party. I ran the idea through the boys, aka the Ugly Munkiz, and they were in total agreement; a party was in order. The thing with parties is that they never go according to plan, especially the ones I throw; someone always acts a fool.

But I was sure this one would be different because I’d only invited the normal chaps but trust things to go haywire. I bet most of you have thrown a party before.

Have you ever noticed that there is always one guy, or lady (I’m trying not to be accused of being sexist) who you don’t know, haven’t invited but still ends up causing the most headache?

I have nothing against gate crashers, having been one myself on countless occasions, but it seems that some people haven’t mastered the art of being a proper crasher.

You see, being a crasher makes you a target of certain evil looks; so, instead of being the life of the party you kind of melt into the crowd and quietly imbibe the free alcohol.

If you are as good at melting into the background as a friend of mine from Nyamirambo, you’ll even melt into the background with a pretty girl on your arm!

Just whatever you do, don’t be a nuisance! That, my friends, is the basic code off all professional party crashers. Problem was, in the little get-together that I threw, I was accosted by the worst kind of party crasher.

He was drunk on arrival, loud and totally uncouth. And trust me, when the OB calls you uncouth you really need help! The worst thing was that I couldn’t throw him out because he arrived with a really good pal of mine.

Because he was known for hanging out with shady characters (we don’t define ourselves as really that shady), we actually told him NOT to come with any of his ‘ghetto’ friends.

Trust me, we aren’t elitist at all, however, even we have standards-no matter how low they are. As soon as the fellow sat down I knew I was in for a long night. His first demand was for a warm beer.

I mean reaaallyy...A WARM BEER? Who in his right mind would drink a warm beer when a cold one is available?Certainly not anyone in his/her right mind methinks. I was the host so I got him one.

At the first sip it seems as if the bubbles went straight to his head. He started saying the strangest things; he would quote Socrates...and get the quote all wrong. When we tried to correct him, he’d spring up menacingly, look at us with a crazed expression on his face and then sprout out even more hogwash!

I was getting nervous by all his crazed talk but then he outdid himself. He pulled out his rather nice mobile phone and without preamble, started playing music right off it!Nothing against that except that I’d fixed up a music system and it was blaring in the background.

So, there we were, looking at this fellow singing along to his ringtone while U2 played. It took all my effort not to stand up and kill the guy. I can’t lie and say that the fact that he was built like a tank didn’t also deter any reaction.

In the politest voice I could muster, I asked him to stop but all he did was give me a glare, and then demand another warm beer!

Contact: madogz2002@yahoo.ca