Mr Survivor: Promises and lies at the Palace

Having survived the tumultuous year that was, which rudely and radically changed my modusoperandi, I leapt into this year in a swag. Being the survivor that I am, I had hoped to promote myself from being a hustler to a dynasty through upgrading from a Volkswagen Beetle to a Volkswagen Golf.

You will remember that I ended last year on a high note, by earning myself peace at the Palace. That is to say that my Kamala accepted me back to her queenly fold. I say earning peace because it only happened after I took my family for a Christmas escapade at Aberdare Fotel. It was in the resultant marital bliss that I shared my New Year plans which I had hoped were appropriate husbandly wiles to capture and sustain Queen’s attention throughout the year.

I easily wriggled myself out of what was promising to be a spark of fire at the Palace.

As you very well know, I have always been very comfortable with my other love, the Concorde, the age tested and proven Volkswagen Beetle. You also very well know how Kamala has been sending me to marital Siberia to blackmail me to buy a car worth her imagined social status. And so to avoid antagonising her, which would automatically mean my banishment, I promised to save her and the future leaders from the ignominy of being associated with the Beetle.

The irony of the matter is that buying a Volkswagen Golf means earning a place in the list of the dynasties in Aberdare countryside, a group that Kamala does not wish to even be remotely associated with. But the last time I broached the issue of our being labelled dynasties because of our assumed financial worth, she was fast and finalistic. “Learn to appreciate what God has blessed you with. When God opens the door of riches for you, no one can close it,” she had said.

Great expectations 

Now, my Queen suffers from great expectations, and in her malady, I have only been driving the Beetle because I suffer from an inverted sense of aesthetics. In her understanding, all I required to do was get rid of the Beetle and buy the Golf in a day. I highly doubt whether she can spell the word Volkswagen Golf, leave alone knowing it. But to her, anything else that can move from one point to another apart from the Beetle is welcome at the Palace.

In her great expectations, she had already spread the gospel of the Golf to her customers at Slopes Supermarket. When nothing seemed to happen in the first week of January, she did what she knows best. “Where is the Golf that you promised?’’ asked the activist. At that juncture, I realised that Kamala had not changed in the New Year despite the semblance of peace at the palace. She was still my inciting wife. She had set loose the future leaders to terrorise me. “Eee, that Golf is a beautiful car,” joined the family Ombudsman. “Golf ya red is best!” concluded our last born, the joker.

“The Golf is bought from Germany which is very far. Immediately the Corona is over, the ships will start coming,” I said in a bout of creativity on the spur of the moment. “Are ships affected by Corona?” asked the activist. “No, it is the ‘drivers’ of the ships that are affected,” I answered. They looked up to Kamala for further instructions because my ready answers had completely disoriented them. She did not disappoint.

Spark of fire 

“Haiya! So, are you buying a brand new car?” asked Kamala. She had been taken in by my prompt reply and I was enjoying the whole drama. “I thought I had told you. I may have forgotten.” To increase the life span of my lies, I added, “It takes six months for a ship to sail from Germany to the port of Mombasa. They will alert me when they start the journey,” I told her with a priestly mien. “You should have said it so that I can include it in my prayers,’’ Queen said excitedly.

And that is how I easily wriggled myself out of what was promising to be a spark of fire at the Palace. I had managed to prolong my peace of mind for the time being, but deep inside my mind I knew I had only dug a new hole to fill up an old one. I am actually living in the eye of a storm.  How long I shall remain in this precarious situation is the elephant in the Palace.

But being the survivor that I am, I shall keep modifying the promises and lies as time goes by and depending on the level of incitement to the future leaders. I hope the modifications and postponements will give me time to strike a gold mine and solve the problem of a respectable and acceptable vehicle at the Palace.  After all, it isn’t like I would fall sick if I drove a car worth a second look.