STONE COLD HAVEN

Impulse buying for me, has this ability to evoke certain blood thumping emotions. It must be a man thing – one of them that easily defines an exercise in futility if you try to understand it. There are certain conversations that trigger such emotions – say, like “let’s just pop into the supermarket for a sec and grab some things” or “I’m thinking of grabbing a few bits before we get home”. They have a similar effect to the male psyche when we hear statements like “we have to talk” or “sweetie, I missed my period” or “babes, you remember when I told you that…” – yeah! That kind of feeling.

So when a pit stop at a Tesco petrol station this week turned into a shopping expedition in the supermarket next door, my body defaulted to the “I don’t really wanna be hear” mode. There’s just something about shopping that repels my DNA, and while I accept that it’s a necessity in life, there’s a very big difference between picking a few bits and bobs and going out for “shopping”. I never really get to know how much drama is involved until that humongous trolley is pulled from the trolley parking zone and before I can even utter the words “do we really need this giant thing for a few bits”, there’s that almost dismissive “we’re here anyway, I think we should just do all the shopping now” response, served straight with her ‘“what you gon do’ face.

Well, one option is to go back to the car, roll the chair down and just sink off into the music, but once you’ve reached the stage of being at the supermarket door and seeing that ‘what you gon do’ face, you’ll swiftly rule out this option with a quick reminder not to get out of the car next time. Call it the pragmatism of maintaining world peace and harmony. But even then, world peace has its own casualties, and for me, its that nightmare of being in a mega store that I really don’t want to be in.

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Recently, a good friend asked me for some advice as he prepared for a rare trip back home. As I write this post, I wonder quietly whether he came through unscathed, but I guess I’ll have to wait for him to get on a plane and for us to eventually sit and chat with a cold beer in hand, before I can find out the true extent of the said expedition. For many folks who have settled abroad, a long overdue trip back to the motherland is something to get excited about, and it’s something you plan for a long time.

Granted, a holiday trip home, especially with ‘er indoors and the kids is a project in itself. However, the benefits say for folks at home who genuinely want to see you (as opposed to those who get pissed off that you’ve spent thousands of pounds on air fare for you and your kin – money which would have been better spent via a western union transfer to them), far outweigh the financial and emotional investment and stress involved. Well, with the exception of that dreaded trip to the outlaws.

“Come we stay” has been the de facto option for most immigrant couples from home who meet abroad, and I suspect that at the back of every man’s mind (at least those who are not just interested in the convenience of in-house booty as opposed to a serious relationship), there’s that daunting feeling that the time will come when you’ll have to make an honest woman of the lady you’ve been waking up next to for most part.

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I sometimes find myself in a zone where not much seems to happen – kind of like being stuck in traffic without much hope for movement. You know the general direction you’re heading in life, but there’s zilch you can do about the sheer pile up of a jam in front of you. Some folks prefer to call this state of affairs as being in limbo, but I prefer to think of it as downtime that I can justifiably take pleasure at doing absolutely nothing as I wait for the proverbial car in front to move a few notches.

This past “doing nothing” moment found me talking on the phone to an old pal who I keep in touch with once in a blue moon – and for some reason, we were lamenting about how our sons (who are roughly the same age) are growing up on a totally different planet from where we live. I guess before concluding that we were just a bunch of old geezers, we found ourselves reminiscing about the good ole days of growing up the hard way. Nostalgia does have this amazing habit of filling voids that seem annoying at best, and a recipe for procrastination at worst.

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Gone are the days when parents lambast their kids for watching too much telly or standing too close to the TV – citing reasons like “the TV rays will mess your eyes up” or “too much TV will stunt your growth”. No no! Wafer thin plasma TV’s and flat screen varieties that don’t emit funny rays like the old school type that are too heavy and give burglars hernias during transit are in fashion.

But they too come with their own mortal dangers. Of late, there’s a growing trend in the UK (or maybe not just out here) of flat screen TV’s mounted on walls or on shelving jumping out at little 2 or 3 year old toddlers and killing them instantly. A parent’s worst nightmare is their child falling from the top of the stairs or God forbid, running innocently onto the road when playing. But I doubt there’s folks out there who occasionally remind themselves “I must do something about that telly on the wall – it’s going to fly out of the wall one day and injure someone – let me make a note of that”.

Considering 4 toddlers have died this year by TV’s jumping out of the wall and crushing them, it’s only a matter of time before ‘elf and safety Mafioso insist that TV manufacturers carry warnings on them – “WARNING! This device is capable of killing unsuspecting toddlers – Suitable for children over 6 years of age”.

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I’ve become very skilled at hitting the mute button on the remote to stop my blood pressure from rising because of sucker TV commercials. In fact, I try to break my own record of how fast I can zap the bastards off. The ones that get me the most are those that try to shop you secured loans and always start with stupid questions like “Are you a home owner? Do you have debts you want to consolidate?…” Or the ambulance chasing ones from Accident Direct or Injury lawyers for you or something like that that start with “Have you been injured at work, on the road or whilst walking in town??? We could help you make a claim!” You know them type of adverts I’m talking about…LOL!

So last week, my wife and I were approaching a roundabout and we had to slow down. My wife was driving and I was fiddling with the car Stereo trying to locate one of my favourite songs by Mwamburi – Stella mpenzi wangu (I just love the part he brings his whole clan to the airport to meet Stella his long lost love flying in from Japan and she chucks out of the plane holding a baby with a short Japanese fella following her behind…).

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