Opinions of Friday, 23 August 2024

Columnist: Mawuli Zogbenu

Useless Column: 'People doesn't know'

Mawuli Zogbenu is the author Mawuli Zogbenu is the author

The biggest scam done to one self is to bath with hot water in the night and then switch the air-condition on so you can sleep well. I do it a lot especially whenever I find myself in a hotel room. After all, I paid for the AC so let me use it well well.

But I often forget that even though the car speedometer limit may be 250 km per hour on the dashboard, it does not mean I should get to the limit. I know the consequences if I should and the principles in both cases still apply. But me? I will still bath with hot water tonight and sleep under the aircon….full nyanya and dream that I am swimming inside swimming pool! It’s weekend again and we are here again to do some washing down.

So you are coming to write a serious exams and you are here wearing boubou, ei Korshivi; do you really want to pass especially for those of you who enter exams hall in suit and tie and sometimes in brand new shoes? Anyway, depending on how prepared you are, nobody will tell you to undress when they say ‘Start work’! When God does not love you, He will not take you through trials. The Book of James in the Bible is one of my favorites. It is quite a short Book but full of real life motivation.

My favorite scripture is James 1:2 and it reads: “My brethren, consider yourself fortunate when all kinds of trials come your way”. This memory verse has been my guide since I was born into suffering…promax. Yes, my parents started this whole promax of a generation.

You naaa you know you are very very poor and yet you gave birth to 13 of us! Eish! Efo Zogbenu Senior! That’s just by the way! Kofi, if you have not been through trials before, you can’t write ‘useless’ articles for nearly 10 years on weekly basis o. Where will you get the ideas from? Hmmm! You have no idea how I struggle sometimes before getting something to write about every week especially in the midst of several other commitments. Trials…trials…suffer…suffer – na in dey give contents! People doesn’t know la! Hahaaaa!

It’s weekend again and stress is killing us and we must kill it with unnecessary satiric stuff like this non-fa! Okay, let’s go oo! We all say this o, that stress is killing people yet we still do things that stress us. Sleep early, you say no. Manage your stress by going on leave, you say you are too important to your employer so you can’t. Dey there! We all trigger the conversation around stress management only when we hear about the sudden passing away of a relatively young person yet still, we will stress ourselves until until…God forbid! ‘CIGARETTE SMOKING IS HARMFUL TO YOUR HEALTH’ is on the cigar pack yet….empty cigarette packs are all over the place! Akpeteshie will weaken your liver yet, it is still senior man in the scheme of things.

It does nothing to the bottle containing it till it gets into your stomach and acts immediately. The same way it acts very fast on the liver too and before you know it, they say ‘Gone too soon’ and an innocent man or woman somewhere thinking about themselves would be blamed for juju-ing somebody to death. Continue drinking. It is good for your health so long as you won’t live forever. Go ahead! I am talking to myself though. Those were the days my old man would send me to buy ‘konkon ameve’ (2 tots). When I get home, he will take more than one tot and give me the rest to consume. As he staggers to the left and singing unknown songs, I stagger to the left just laughing at him while we go around Kisseman township creating confusion and chaos! Ao! Hmmm! It is well.

Most of our problems result from stubbornness. I don’t sleep early, now see my stomach. Gboom! So I suggest you look for trials if you don’t have one. Get to a junction and identify a pretty lady passing by. Call her for her number (for evil intentions…obviously). Take all her contacts. She is likely to give you three numbers. One for normal calls, one for whatsapp and the other one for momo! You either choose all or choose two of the numbers. In choosing any of the two, make sure the last one (momo number is part). If I were you, I would choose whatsapp and momo, but the reluctance with which I will save the momo number will be greater than the zeal with which I take it. She is very pretty.

Call her later that night and start doing those childish things I have been saying: ‘I am missing you already”. Just meeting someone a few hours ago, and you are missing her already. Holy Ghost fire, consume that edwaman spirit from me. Ajeeei!

The next thing that can let your genitals shrink as the conversation gets exciting with her is that moment when she starts letting you know that at the time you met her, she was just returning from the hospital and needs GHC3,900 for medications for her uncle who is on admission at the hospital. Her eye-phone screen is cracked and needs replacement and that is the reason she is using her junior brother’s yam phone to flash you for you to call back.

Her senior sister’s wedding is coming up in two weeks and she needs to support her with décor and fruit juice. Her rent is due next month and her birthday is May 12. If these are the kind of trials you intend having, then you are on your own; don’t create them. These trials are man-made and will stress you for nothing. The devil does not create anything but destroys a lot if you give him the opportunity.

Greetings to my lovely wife o. That woman never gives me problem o. God sent! I told you before that the biggest scam I ever did to myself was to have told people that ‘as for me, my wife doesn’t like money’. I said this 20 years ago and realized it was a scam 18 years ago!

You know one of the things that can disorganize any parent is when one’s child falls sick.

It is even worse when you are not at home and your spouse calls to tell you about it. So it turned out that I had an experience like that recently and asked Madam to send her to a private hospital nearby. It’s quite an expensive clinic but what could be more expensive than human life! I promised her I would pay everything she spends on the child when I return home.

That is about a month ago. She is still finding it difficult to tell me how much I owe her. Her reason was that the longer it took for me to pay, the higher the interest that will accrue. The darkness in which she has put me is the fact that she has not even mentioned the principal amount. So at the end of last month, I decided to ‘force’ her to let me know how much she actually spent before we discuss the interest component. So I gave her a copy of the Bible to hold. She wondered why. Then I brought out some cash and asked her to swear by the Bible how much exactly she spent.

She laughed and laughed and laughed and threw the Bible away on to the bed. According to her, if declaring the amount hospital bills is the use of the Bible as a condition, she won’t make profit. So therefore I should forget about it. Eish! So some of our wives, what at all do you use / need money for apart from the things you yourselves are able to afford? Or the fact that you possess it? The What she even added that sweet me was that she doesn’t really need a refund from me. The reason? She is Mother and her household name is Moda so therefore she does not know why she should even claim a refund! God bless all Mothers who are this caring!

But I fear not! I heard the phrase ‘fear not’, they say appears in the Bible 365 times though I am yet to come across one. That is why I believed it when I heard that when the lion roars towards you and you stand firm and run after it, it will run away. DISCLAIMER: I am not responsible for any casualty resulting if you listen to this advice and try facing the lion face to face.

Me, I only heard it from somewhere. I am not a motivational speaker; In fact, I can’t be one. E bi lion you dey want take play, Chicha Asaney? Have a nice weekend and remember the fact that in order to live long, have a free heart towards everyone including your enemies by embracing them – even the lion!

Does you know that a lion is not the strongest animal in on earth? It only uses takashi. When you see a lion, just shout and run towards it and while embracing it, say: ‘Uncle Lion,…aaaatuuuuuuuu!