It’s good to know when to leave
I nearly exploded with anger while roasting meat and downing ice cold ones with my nephews and a few friends in Mufakose last weekend.
This was after I learnt that an obscure fellow within the group had ordered the braai attendant to dish meat to girls from his hood.
To my chagrin, this bloke who had the effrontery to donate our food to those who were dear to him and not the group, had not contributed anything towards the purchase of the meat and beverages.
He, in fact, was a parasite we were calculating how best to get rid of without puncturing his ego.
I felt my resilience being tested in the most difficult way.
“Mudhara I didn’t steal the meat. In fact, that tall guy with a furrowed brow whom you are chatting with is the one who instructed me to give some of the meat to those ladies,” the braai attendant said, while pleading his innocence.
When I asked the bloke whether what had been said was true, he shamelessly confirmed while demanding that I buy him another round of booze. What! In this challenging economy? Gentle reader, being a gracious host always has its downside.
Clowning spices up things, but not when done to excess. The same applies to entertaining guests. There should be time to draw the line and say enough is enough.
It seems there is an unwritten law that some people may never stop bothering you until you squeal.
The people we offer brotherly love sometimes deal us body blows which leave us wondering whether getting them close was worth it after all.
Some visitors talk all night long and even wake up in the dead of the night to make tea and fry sausages as if they will be out to fix the host.
Likewise, there are some clingers who do not appreciate that when people visit beerhalls and other places of merriment, they need to be left alone or at least be given time to discuss by themselves.
“Tsitsi dzinotsitsirira” and “kakova kenyadzi kanemarinda,” are common Shona idioms that indicate just how bad some people behave after being helped.
As I commit pen to paper gentle reader, there are millions of people out there who rue their decisions to help some characters who later hurt them.
“I offered a former classmate a place to sleep after I saw him stranded in Mutare.
“The moment he left, I discovered that he had helped himself to my groceries and taken away everything of value he could lay his hands on. I always kick myself in the foot for making that decision to help him,” I heard an elderly man called Simbirori saying in Crowhill last weekend.
His colleague said he heaved a sigh of relief when an acquaintance he had offered accommodation bade farewell after close to a year in his house.
“I went to school with the boy’s brother and I took him as a young brother as well. He spent about 11 months in my house while not contributing anything.
“He neither paid water bills nor bought food. On occasions when my wife did not set aside food for him, he would complain bitterly.
“As if that was not enough, this mistake of a gentleman even went back to his rural home to pick up an ailing nephew whom he brought to my house. I will never entertain anyone again at my home.”
Apart from these two wizened fellows, one gentleman said he was forced to take his cousin to the police after it emerged that he had raped the maid on the night he visited.
“A human being is just difficult to handle and that is perhaps why a gun was invented to control him. A cousin of mine once paid a visit only to discover the following morning that he had forced himself on the maid.
When family members discovered this is what I had done, they all turned against me,” he said.
The issue is not confined to the poor who will be in need of help or act out of desperation.
The rich are sometimes caught offside, especially in instances where they accompany a friend to their rural home or visit the sick in hospitals.
There is nothing wrong with visiting a colleague at the hospital, but one should be careful not to spend the entire visiting hour on the friend’s sickbed.
They should give the sick person a chance to be monitored by family members.
Some even want to sit in during family discussions, offering unwelcome advice on matters that least concern them.
Gentle reader, people need time to be free and it is not advisable to overstay one’s welcome.
Inotambika mughetto.