Agony of a grand coalition at home

Agony of a grand coalition at home
‘‘Then she says in full volume: ‘God of Abraham and God of Isaac. God of Noah and God of Abednego. Look upon this house of ours that was abandoned by the man you gave us to look after us. Lord God, even as we starve, we thank you for life.’’

By WAHOME MUTAHI

If Baba Moi really wants to learn some real wisdom about how to deal with these jiggers called coalitions, he should seek my advice.
He should consult me although nobody has ever seen it wise to vote me into any office, even that of a school prefect.
However, one woman, some years back, voted me the most handsome man she had ever seen. You see, I had plenty of hair on my head and I walked as if I was the younger brother of James Bond; also called Special Agent 007.
If you were not around then, 007 was the toughest film man. The guy had all the beautiful women and drank only Scotch on the rocks.
Well, in the films.

When she saw me, she asked me to form a coalition with her and since she was also being voted one of the most beautiful skirt-wearers by acclamation, I was in a mood to consider a merger.
In short, I was turned into a husband and we formed a new government in the village with Thatcher as the prime minister. I was named the president.
Under the arrangement, I was to be the chief hunter of money and she would be in charge of distributing it. I was also given certain conditions. The main one was that I should never ever think of a coalition with any other skirt-wearer.
In turn, my new Thatcher swore before a priest that she would stay with me in times of hair and in times of baldness. She has stuck with me even in these times that I have very little that would please Wangari Mathaai on my head.

At the moment

The results of my election as a husband, or the domestic Taliban as some of the people I am going to talk about call me, are two characters.
You already know them. One of them is the domestic thug, Whispers Junior, he who sometimes professes to be a junior priest in the Mungiki Sect. Then there is the Investment alias Pajero, she who now drinks only onion juice for lunch because she is afraid of putting on weight.
The coalition with Thatcher over the years has seen me being put in the situation that Baba Moi is in at the moment. Although I am supposed to be the president in my house, I have faced many situations where I have been told that my projects are zero and that I should try and sell them elsewhere.
People who are supposed to show me total and direct loyalty are forming their own alliances.

As Baba Gideon will tell you from his experience in the main house, that thing called loyalty is given to you depending on the state of your wallet. The same thing happens in my house where coalitions are formed with me or against me, depending on the state of my wallet.
So come that time of the month when the wallet is loaded, I see all the signs of coalitions. My Thatcher discovers a new vocabulary, and indeed, she becomes reborn.
That is why come time to wake up in the morning, she does not do her usual thing. Her usual thing when she is not in my coalition is to open her mouth and direct it towards the sitting room of our neighbours.
Then she says in full volume: “God of Abraham and God of Isaac. God of Noah and God of Abednego. Look upon this house of ours that was abandoned by the man you gave us to look after us.
Lord God, even as we starve, we thank you for life. We thank you because we are alive although the man you gave us wants us to starve.
Give us sugar, God, if nothing else.

Give us half of a quarter of real meat, oh God! Give us even half a tomato for those are the little things of life we don’t get in our house though Lord God, you gave us a husband and a father.”
The idea is not to ask God for sugar, meat and onions. The idea is to tell my neighbours that when husbands are finally counted, I will never be among them.
It is to tell the world that she made a mistake to have a coalition with me, in the first instance, but that since she swore to stick with me in times of hair or baldness, only God can save her and her clan from my sinful ways of diverting sugar money into the bank accounts of Kenya Breweries.
Then she rises as if she is feeling pain all over her body. The only part of her body that is active at that moment is her mouth, which is now singing things to the effect that the good day will come when she will join Jesus in that part of the world where there are no husbands.

In the next 10 minutes

Thus she is trying to be slower than a snail in getting out of bed and doing what she is supposed to do. One of the things she is supposed to do is to warm water for my bath.
As she inches slowly out of that bed, I mention that water and suggest that if I don’t get it in the next ten minutes, some things that were promised at the altar when we were making our coalition might be changed.
Thatcher looks at me with one eye half-open and says: “Some people speak as if they have never owned hands in their lives. If somebody feels he is getting late, si he can even use saliva for bathing? If that person does not know the way to the kitchen where water is warmed, why does he not ask for direction?”

That is the kind of talk that would have made the man I am named after, Son of Nyaituga, marry another wife instantly. However, although I have the blood of that man, I don’t have all the privileges that he had.
One of them is that I cannot go into several coalitions with people who call me husband. The result is that I am just forced to swallow the insult that my Thatcher has swung at me.
I get out of bed feeling the way Baba Moi must have felt that morning when one of his in-laws rose and started singing that he now belongs to rainbow and not to the cockerel clan.
In short, I was feeling like committing several murders. Then I meet the Investment and I greet her in the hope that she will see the desperation on my face and warm my water. Instead of answering my greetings, she begins a mini speech.

What speech says

The speech says that she is what is called pre-woman and that she has her rights in the house. One of the rights is to “hang out with the sisters and to share vibes with them.”
She swears that she is not what she calls a “domestic slave like my mother and will never be one.” I am supposed to understand that being a domestic slave is to be a wife so she is announcing that she will never marry.
In short, I am supposed to understand that I will never get dowry from a young man aspiring to form a coalition with her. I am also supposed to be so understanding that I should no longer question when she sleeps out because she is “sharing vibes” with the so-called sisters.
The so-called sisters wear faces and other things that make them say that God made a mistake to create them women.
I get a very good idea that the Investment has a coalition with her mother who now manages to edge out of the bedroom at that moment.
Even before she has asked what is happening, she asks: “Can’t children have peace in this house? What is this business of quarrelling children in the morning even before their eyes have met water? Why are my children being given stress? How are they supposed to excel in school if their father cannot give them peace?”

In other words, I’m being accused of being a Taliban against my daughter. Then at that moment, Whispers Junior enters the house.
He has spent the night out. His eyes look like a pair of rotten tomatoes and his cheek is full of a ball of chewed twigs of the variety grown in Meru.
The fellow walks in as if he is in a senior dream and I give him way because I don’t want to be accused of child abuse any more at this time when my Thatcher is talking about “my children” as if were was not involved in the making of the Investment and the domestic thug.

The mother takes his hand and says: “My son, what will you have, juice, chocolate or coffee? Thatcher is asking that thug that question when my thoughts are on murder.
I am thinking about the quickest but most painful way of sending a young man to his maker.
When I leave the house half an hour later, the rainbow coalition in my house has become a super alliance all against me, Baba Pajero.
When I leave, the three are agreeing on how to fight my new project, which is to upgrade the Whispermobile by buying some wheels that don’t cough when they are supposed to start and transport me to places.

More efficient

I later learn that Project Whispermobile is opposed on the grounds that if I get better wheels, my throat will become more efficient in handling kanywaji now that I will not have to worry about how to get home. Mother and children finally agree to fight the Whispermobile project until the end.
They don’t reach the end because the end of the month comes sooner and then my wallet becomes loaded. Then once gain I become “our dear father and husband”, in an effort to seek a coalition with me.
Then Thatcher does not wake me up with her prayers. She wakes me up with, “Dear husband, how do you want your water? Do you want it medium hot, medium or just hot?”
Don’t be afraid: Don’t be afraid that Kenyans will remember all the crimes you have committed against them if you are seeking votes.
Drink and be merry for they have very short memories.