Some things should not be talked about in public

Recently, a few of us decided to come out of the forced hibernation now that everyone else has, and have a get-together.

There was a lot of catching up to do and lots to talk about like happens when friends stay for a long time without meeting. At some point, the conversation veered to house helps and someone asked me how much I paid mine.

 I was taken aback because I find such questions invasive, too private — it is like you asking me how much I earn and expecting me to tell you.

Anyway, all eyes were on me, waiting for an answer. I am skilled at evasiveness when the need arises, therefore the one asking did not get an answer, after which we speedily moved on to more general topics.

I don’t know about you, but I find most conversations to do with money deeply personal, and always find it disconcerting when people casually talk about how much they earn, how much rent they pay, how much their car cost them or the amount of school fees they pay for their children every term.

The discomfort of such conversations is almost at par with the unsettling feeling I get when people publicly talk about their sex life. Or lack of it. Some things, I feel, are sacred, and should not be announced from the hilltop, so to speak. But maybe I am too conservative.

Fatigue

A few years ago, I went shopping with a friend. The main agenda was to buy clothes. It is said that women have a weakness for shopping, that they love to shop for clothes and shoes and handbags and that they don’t think twice about spending a fortune on them.

 Well, that is a stereotype. Fatigue washes over me whenever I think of shopping for these things because it is impossible to get everything you need under one roof, therefore requiring lots of legwork and endless fitting, which leaves you sweating like a pig.

Sometimes I wish that shopping for clothes was like shopping in a supermarket where you simply walk to a certain aisle and dump everything you need in a trolley, pay and leave.

But I digress. I hadn’t bought clothes in while and it was beginning to show, therefore I had budgeted for this trip. My troubles began almost immediately. I saw a top I liked and which fit perfectly, but when the person selling quoted the price, this friend exclaimed, “Hiyo yote?”

I had already begun reaching into my handbag to pay for it, but her remark stopped me midway. She went on to declare that she would never pay that much for second-hand clothes. Needless to say, I left the top there and off again we went in search of something cheaper.

Unfortunately, everything we got was too expensive for her, and at one point she accused the seller of trying to swindle us because what he was selling us cost much less elsewhere. Never mind that she wasn’t the one paying. Needless to say, that ended up being a wasted afternoon because after hours of walking from stall to stall, I had nothing to show for it. Not even a handkerchief.

Which brings me to my point — people who make you feel guilty for spending your hard-earned money. They are the kind that will look at what you’re wearing, ask you how much each item cost you and then declare that you were robbed in daylight, and that they could have gotten better for much less.

That is why, after that incident, I make a point of making my rare shopping alone.

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