LIVING LIFE : Who’s Richer Now?

That time of the year when we get to know the richest man in the world has come, despite your constant swing between financial despair and the ability to afford a bottle of beer (oops) – agasha for your friends. Good for me since I don’t have to worry where I lie on that list – I know my name is very close to the bottom, but unlike me, the guys who don’t even know how much money they have, sit there waiting for some guy at Forbes Magazine to shout out, “who’s richer now?” So the big news is apparently that Bill Gates, whose real third name is ‘the richest man in the world,’ is finally not the richest man in the world. But do you think Bill Gates cares whether or not he is the richest man in the world? I don’t think. Look, the fellow is worth 53 billion US dollars. I tried to change that into Rwandan francs and I ended up with a very bad headache. First, my phone calculator kept telling me, ‘error’, so I though whoever made it did not expect me to be calculating such ridiculous figures on my cheap phone. So I took to the calculator and I found out that a 12 figure amount showed up on the screen plus another ‘error’ sign. So I resorted to my simple arithmetic skills, after all I have this degree in, you don’t want to know and the fellow Bill Gates chickened out of his Harvard degree because his lecturer told him his dream to invent a computer was crap. So I gather am better than him at least, after fidgeting for minutes with my notebook, I gave up, my time, paper and ink wasted plus phew, I now have to contend with a headache all because am trying to understand how much money someone else has. As if my troubles are just not enough, here comes another big man from Mexico who is supposedly half a billion dollars richer than Gates and he is not even a drug dealer, called Carlos who? Not Carlos the Jackal, but this Carlos Slim Helu is not even slim and besides what kind of mother gives a child a name like Slim? Those aside, look here. Let’s be fair – the guy has lost count of how many companies he owns, 200 the last time he counted. That’s not fair, or is it? And if you are thinking about emulating him, note that Slim was worth 40 million US dollars at 26 and if you are still interested in that scheme, well, the best of luck! Anyway, this Sunday, please don’t try to be rich. You don’t want newspapers to begin counting all the chickens and the goats in your farm because they want to make some important list. Just live your life. I wish you a simple Sunday. kelviod@yahoo.com