MR SURVIVOR: How Queen’s Bottom up has thrown me into Marital Siberia
When I arrived at the Palace in the wee hours of the morning, I was surprised to find the lights still on. But I did not require a professor to tell me that those were the signs of the start of the third world war.
Those of you who have faithfully followed my tribulations on this private-public platform know very well that Queen and I are ideologically divorced although we remain maritally together. Like most other families this side of Sahara, with the exception of the newest first family of this country, we struggle to maintain a faint veneer of marital harmony.
Recently, for the first time, we miraculously had a common stand on a largely contentious issue. As hustlers, we shared the same presidential candidate. But that was a short-lived honeymoon. As soon as the chief hustler won and took over leadership, Queen slid back to her signature oppositionist lifestyle. As I speak now, my beloved Concorde, the weather-beaten Volkswagen Beetle, and I are persona non grata at the Palace.
You see, my Queen demanded that I implement the bottom up financial model at the Palace to the letter. And when Queen sets her mind on something, and particularly when that something is even remotely related to me, not even her bishop can convince her otherwise.
Last Saturday, when I arrived at the Palace at my normal small hours of the morning after the close of business, I was surprised to find the lights still on. I did not require a professor of the psychology of women to tell me that those were the signs of the start of the third world war at the Palace. At such times, I steal myself to the house, humming a mau mau war song in a manner of saying that I am a live wire. But my Queen does not buy fear that easily. Such tactics have not borne any fruits in the past but there was no harm trying.
When I finally went into the sitting room, nay, living room, Queen’s verbal volcano burst at the seams and a virulent deluge flowed freely. “If I may ask, where are you coming from at such satanic hours?” Queen greeted. “From work. Business is good and I could not just leave good money,” I humbly answered.
“Mmm! What good business? And so, where is the so called good money now?” I did not have an immediate answer for the rain of questions because at that very moment, I remembered that she had herself been arriving at the same satanic hours during the campaign period yet I never asked her for the money she earned.
“Am I speaking to somebody? That good money, where is it?” she persisted. “You very well know that it is risky to carry ‘cash money’ at night. And if I may ask, what emergency is there for you to ask for the money at this time and in such an unchristian way?” I ventured.
“Your body language betrays you. You have no money, not when you have made that satanic woman your first family and that evil valley your first home!” she shouted. Evil valley is Queen’s name for Happy Valley Grills, my taxi pick up point and refreshment joint while the satanic woman is Mrembo, the proprietor of the business.
“What haven’t I done in the house?” I asked her. This is what Queen was waiting for. The ‘sermon in the Palace’ had just begun. “It is not about what you haven’t done. It is about what you have ever done and what you will ever do if you ever intended to do anything in the first place,” she shouted.
“Take my words very seriously. If I have to continue living in this house, if it can be called a house in the first place, you have to start living the bottom up. Money will first be spent with me and in this house before it is wasted with that woman in that evil valley. Period!”
And with that ‘Palace declaration’, Queen left for the bedroom in a huff, banging the door behind her in a way to tell me that I was not welcome anywhere near her. In other words, that was a loud announcement of the start of marital Siberia.
I am still thinking hard about the best way out of this wifely torment and with no casualties. But if Queen thinks that she will sell fear to me by use of her misinterpretation of the bottom up narrative, then she is in for a rude shock. She is just pretending that she has forgotten she is married to none other than Mr. Survivor, the survivor par excellence of the Happy Valley countryside. Watch this space.
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