Mutiso the caretaker must go, otherwise we shall resort to mass action
What you need to know:
- Mutiso holds no prisoners. Whenever we clap back at him in protest of the curfew, he just sneers.
- When you tell him that he is just a bitter sod battling midlife crisis, he looks menacingly and bites his tongue.
- He then gets his pound of flesh when our parents send in the rent. He snitches and tells them how we lead delinquent lives full of debauchery.
Caretakers are like mosquitoes. They pounce when you least expect. They are agents of unwanted and unwarranted torment. Mutiso, our caretaker, had decided to be the suffocating smoke in our young lungs. His hairline was receding faster than his obsession with our business.
His soprano voice and a heavy mother tongue shrub made him speak louder with every word. A mere one-week delay in paying rent automatically earns you a date with this nosy caretaker. It gives him permission to storm your soap dish mansion with the brutality of an angry police officer. This year, Mutiso unilaterally imposed a deadline for gate closing. It became easier to gain entrance into a nightclub with no ID than to enter our single rooms past 9pm. And he showed no mercy to late comers. Arrive late by one second and you’ll be greeted by three huge, black padlocks.
Dave, the gym-hitting psychopath from house 22A, once arrived late and tried to put his well-toned muscles to work. He attempted to break the door, but it appears his strength is only for lifting weights, not for breaking anything. Nancy, the plump girl from house 13S, came past midnight from a food bash and tried to morph into a monkey. Her efforts to scale the walls ended with her falling head over heels, and injuring her Achilles heel. She spent the miserable night outside the gate and was our watchman for the day. Marto, the drunk skunk from 17C, has now been forced to turn bar counters into his bedroom because his tendency to imbibe frothy waters every day means he is always late.
Mutiso holds no prisoners. Whenever we clap back at him in protest of the curfew, he just sneers. When you tell him that he is just a bitter sod battling midlife crisis, he looks menacingly and bites his tongue. He then gets his pound of flesh when our parents send in the rent. He snitches and tells them how we lead delinquent lives full of debauchery. He tells them of our drunken stupors and naked girls. Needless to say, after hearing this, our guardians furiously truncate our pocket money!
What annoys us most is his Wednesday antics. Mutiso and company, a pious praise and worship team, usually hold weekly meetings in his quarters where they shriek gospel songs in discordant harmony. On those days, the whole village, including students trying to cram for CATs, are forced to listen to their bad singing.
Ever since he took over, water rationing has become a permanent problem. He releases water in small doses. But we, boy children, are not complaining. At least we have a reasonable excuse for not wasting water in that non-rewarding activity called bathing. We have also realised we can repeat a pair of jeans for three weeks without washing!
But we are now angry and tired. After days of planning in our WhatsApp group, time has come to bring down Mutiso. Later today, we shall tell him we don’t recognise his leadership. As I type this, comrades in this bedsitter hub are making placards. At 2pm, we shall step out chanting, “Mutiso must go back to planting mangoes!”
