REFLECTIONS : Blunders, billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles!

Why do some people dread mention of their past? In fact, I’ve on a number of occasions been the object of verbal assault due to these musings of mine, because they gall some people of my time. They think I’m exposing their past, by exposing mine. Personally, I’ll always celebrate my past, including my past and present ‘monkey gaffes’ which will one day cost me my life. So, there was this time when I found myself in Hilton Hotel, Nairobi. This was in 1975, just after I’d graduated from ‘A level’, 6th year of secondary education. My late brother (RIP) and I had gone to see our niece, who’d just got married. Knowing that the best bar we knew was ‘Zool’s’ in Mbarara, Uganda, she and her husband took us to Hilton Hotel to show us what a true hotel looked like. After taking us up and down the lift a few times as we marvelled at the wonder ‘vehicle’, they took us for a drink in the bar on the first floor. A number of swallows of White Cap beer, and I asked our hosts where I could take a leak. Frank, my in-law, pointed to a drawing of a man and told me to go behind him. After my business, as I turned to go, I noticed my young brother also coming in and remarked to him: “This cleanliness, one can even take one’s lunch here!” Strangely, though, I could see his lips moving but couldn’t hear what he was saying. I proceeded to go out, but he seemed to be headed straight into me. However much I tried to avoid him, he kept going in my way. “Come on, are you drunk so fast?” I asked in exasperation, as he turned whichever way I turned. Seeing he was not listening, I decided to knock him out of the way, and also headed straight into him. With all my force, I pushed my head forward and knocked his head hard with mine, but then I don’t know what happened after. I only realised later when my in-law was shaking me awake. I had shattered the mirror, and fainted! You see, my brother looked so much like me that people used to call us twins. So, all along, I’d been talking to my reflection! The next time something major happened to me, I almost died. Before that, however, there were many other goofs, some pleasant. In 1978 after my university studies, I was in Vichy, France. We had just been dropped off at Cavillam College, where we were going to pursue a six-month course in French. After seeing the quarters in which we’d be housed, we decided to take a walk around town and window-shop. Hardly had we walked around one corner of the shops, however, than one of us remarked that it was already mid-day. “No!” protested another, “it can only be midnight, you can see there is no one else in this town, except us! Can’t you remember your Geography lessons?” Indeed, it was summer, which meant the night was short in the northern hemisphere! We therefore decided to go back and sleep. As we turned round a corner, I noticed a smartly dressed White man in the shop window stretching his hand out to me. “Pardon, Monsieur,” I apologised in my smattering French: “Bonjour, comment allez-vous?” However, my fingers hit something hard when I stretched my hand back to him in greeting. “That’s a dummy, you dummy!” shouted Karuhanga, who was behind me, as he called out to those in front to see, amidst uncontrollable bouts of laughter. The window glass was so clean that I hadn’t seen it at all! As for the mannequin in the display window, don’t some of them look human, especially if you are seeing them for the first time? Before the course was over, a family that had just returned from Uganda came to see me. We sat and chatted, as they explained that they had met my brother, Hesbey, who had told them that I was in that college. After the conversation, they told me they’d be happy to host me for dinner. The following Thursday afternoon, they came for me and drove me to their home. They showed me around the house and, in the evening, we went to a posh, open-air restaurant by River Seine for a candle-lit dinner. The dinner went on well until I visited their WC. On my way back, when I stepped on what I took to be a shiny floor, I exclaimed: “Ndapfuye data we!” I’d stepped on water and immediately sank into the river. Luckily, the river was so slow as to be stagnant, and when I bobbed up the guards fished me out after swallowing a bucketful. It was as a wet chicken that my shaken hosts took my dripping form back to the college! My toxic gaffes, they’ll be the death of me! ingina2@yahoo.co.uk