KABANDA'S MUSINGS : Measured against others

My dearest and I have one thing in common, we do not agree on anything and when we do seem to agree, it is because I have decided to throw in the towel and pretend to get myself busy or else she sobs the whole day instead of saying “you are right” or “I am sorry” or “thank you”. There is this tendency to compare the two of us with other couples that is a constant reminder to one elderly lady’s advice when she and I first came together. There is a natural thing in all of us to compare; compare ourselves with others, our wives/husbands with others’, our children with others’, our cars, houses, jobs, salaries, countries, continents and even heavens and earth. I guess by comparing ourselves with others, we hope to gauge how well or otherwise we are doing in relation to what and how others fare but this should be about things we as men and women can influence. My dearest does not limit her comparisons to what she and I can influence but things I have no clue about. Imagine she compares our small abode with the palace in which the neighbouring family resides. How do people accumulate so much money in a short period of time without their salary and benefits changing? She says I am a man and I should find out how they do what they do and what matters is that we own a very big house and a big 4x4 that we’ll drive and people turn to marvel. I said unless my salary was increased a couple of some dozen times I could not see the trick to wealth accumulated in a short time. She said it is because I am not man enough; what other men do I should do else I am a coward. People will compare others and come up with such observations as; “the young man knows how to work, he started working last year and has completed two houses”. That sends my dearest into fits of agony telling me that I have worked for far longer than the “boy” but I have nothing to show in terms of houses yet he is progressing fast. “What is it that other men do that you do not do? Maybe you sleep too much at a time other men are working? Maybe they work at night while you snore here in this miserable house? You need to find out; you have no right to make me suffer in this miserable house,” she tells me.Sometime back, she emptied our joint account and bought a matchbox-sized Suzuki. The Suzuki, like Biblical Balaam’s donkey, somehow refused to move but unlike the ass, the former did not tell us what had made it “misbehave”. My dearest accused me of making her suffer with an old vehicle. “Other men’s wives travel in vehicles that reflect sunlight and I have to make my hands and hair black and rough because I married the wrong man. Is there anything that makes you less a man than those whose wives travel distances without rolling in dust fixing vehicles, like me?” she asked. She will tell me about the wives of other people and how well they fare in terms of the number of children, houses, cars and even grandchildren. “Margaret is pregnant again! Tobias is getting married and Marcel will be graduating soon, he has always been bright. Did you know Phoebe came top in her class?” she asks me. I can understand the reason for making me visit women who have given birth and witness what other men can do but knowing what other men’s wives are doing is slightly off my radar. Datiliva compares places of worship! “The other Church is spacious, is better decorated and plays better music, so we have to go that church,” she decrees. Places of worship meant to be places of communion with our Creator should not be compared. After all if He wanted he might have created a place made of gold and the best musicians to sing all day so that miserable human beings could go and compare it with those of the devil and the competition would have been between the supernatural. I can bear many comparatives but I think she has added in a new twist. The other day she said I might be the best man in her life. “I did not think that I could have a handsome man like you,” she told me. I asked her how many men she had had before she had me which sent her in tantrums and I hope I get the right words to say lest she applies the revised law on divorce to send me packing. Email: ekaba2002@yahoo.com