* Terms and conditions apply..........

It’s hard to get a grip on what exactly we are on earth for, but it usually comes down to dimes – after all is said and done, coz without it, we are pretty much nothing. At first we used to have barter trade, where a chap with groundnuts would trade them in for a piece of meat from that chap Galabuzi that used to rear goats, across the hill.

Valuers and brokers were not there those days, so it was hard for Galabuzi to tell how many groundnuts were of equal value to the goat’s liver, or how many kidneys he would trade in for already pounded groundnuts, or how many goat legs would be spared for roasted groundnuts.

Some geniuses then sat down and decided to introduce a fairer way of trading, by getting some rare kind of stones that were used to value stuff, they were known as pieces of silver, and for just 30 of them, you could trade Jesus to the crucifiers, just like Judas. This mode of payment then soon turned to paper, which when counted up to 5 million in Uganda shillings, trades in for a full vote on the removal of the presidential term limits per MP!

Apart from buying votes, this paper can also be used to get anything one wants in order to fulfil that other reason we are all on earth, to live / survive as long as possible, as long as you don’t gamble all yo life savings at a casino and throw yo broke self 3 floors down, cutting short yo journey through this intricate web called life. Every day therefore, humans wake up in a quest to find something that they can exchange for this paper, so they get to use it to find whatever they need. Without it, you are fucked!!

Several ways of finding this dime include sitting at a desk providing yo services for a company that offers stuff, and getting paid at the month’s end. The companies want to make as much as possible, because humans are programmed to never be satisfied, always yearning for more, and setting higher goals every quarter for the helpless sales people, a good and bad thing. People come up with ingenious ways to make this dime, and whenever they manage to scoop in more loot for the company, they are rewarded with more dimes, a term referred to as bonus.

When people get used to the dime they are getting, they usually want more, so because they have no other offer in terms of product, they turn into trickery, to fool you into paying them, quiet thuggery I call it. A very good one is known as “terms and conditions apply”.

With this illusion, chaps tell you they are giving you a very ballistic offer, you would only miss it if you were a fool. It’s like Galabuzi telling you he will give you a goat’s liver for just 2 spoons of groundnuts, but terms and conditions apply, then that’s where he messes u up. For example, a telecom company may……..ah, screw it, Warid may advertise that they have a new offer, Warid Pakalast n more, they call it. They will tell you that for just 1,500 bucks a day, u shall call any other Warid number for free, for 24 hours godamit, plus, here’s the big one, you shall call any other network for 50% of the original cost. So what are u waiting for, buy our sim card and start yapping till yo ear drums burst!! *Terms and conditions apply.

You will dash to the nearest phone shop, like Kagu rushing to the Kasubi tombs, no rioters will stop u, if they dare try, shoot the bastards, coz u gotta make these cheap calls. After removing that other sim card that was previously in yo phone, breaking it up to pieces like districts in Uganda, pouring mud on it like a freakin landslide, you load up the all new Warid number, fork out 1,500 bucks and load up the airtime, carefully counting the balance of 3,500 coz yo usual budget for airtime was 5,000 a day. You run to the nearest rolex dealership, ya, that ka container near the charcoal sellers along the road, and order 2 instead of the usual 1, coz u’ve just made a bargain of yo life! The rolex guy congratulates you on yo promotion at work, “way to go with the bonus punk, am also goin to be rich, long live the potholes and NRM”, just before you cut him short, and tell him to buy a warid sim IMMEDIATELY!!

After settling down, stomach full on 2 rolai..(plural of rolex), u sit on the couch and write down 20 numbers of chaps you are going to talk to, heck, even that teacher Mrs Mburugu of P3 needs to be congratulated for the work she put in helping shape yo previously pathetic existence. But the first call, goes to the former high school friend;

“tooot…..toooo…” goes the phone;

“Hello, gwe waaarrrruuuuupppppp, you won’t believe who is calling…guess who…..ah nawe, it’s not Mike…you guess….ok al give u a clue, I used to wear a green……”

“tooooooooooo…..sorry, your account balance is too low to make this call, please recharge to make another call!!” goes the chick who has just interrupted yo call.

Now u are all pissed, u dial that customer care number…..

“Thank you for calling Warid telecom….for purposes of firing our bullshit employees, this phone call shall be recorded, and because 2 of our employees had a kasiki last night, u shall be required to hold the line as the only one that showed up is updating her facebook profile, but be listening to our adverts in the mean time…”

“Do u Erick Mulalu take Cathy Mulala as yo faithful wife until pakalast does you part…….i do bitch I do…..anything for you warid…..”

“You are now….number….5 in the queue, our customer care bitch shall be with u shortly….anatha ad for yo bored self, let’s waste yo battery so u can charge and give UMEME more dimes for Bududa landslide victims…..”

“we have the clearest network coverage, not MTN, and we are in all parts of the country, unlike bullshit Orange, we are even in bloody Kisoro…”

“Hello, this is Christine, thank you for calling Warid, the clearest network in the country and originators of pakalast, the baddest shit to hit town since the kabiriti, how may I help you?”

“Madam, u said I have 50% off my calls to any network, how come I just spoke for 2 minutes and my airtime was over, I was calling Zain!!”

“Sir, that only applies to the “freedom per minute” and “freedom per second” subscribers, to activate this profile, send an sms to Warid, that’s part of our terms. Next time, just know that TERMS AND CONDITIONS APPLY….u simple bitch!!!”

The chaps who have however used this tool very effectively were known as Fly 540, a so-called low budget airline, with a fleet of kites! You remember those things we used to tie on a string and fly around when we were kids, yep, those are the Fly 540 planes. With a seating capacity of like 8 chaps, 2 of whom are the pilots / air hostesses coz they pass the pints to ALL passengers while still on their seats, they advertised a magnificent 70 $ flight from Entebbe to Nairobi. Okay, they take 50 passengers, but on their ads, u would think they have a freakin jumbo.

Chaps were seen rushing to the immigration office to get passport application forms, suffering at the RDC’s office for that crucial final stamp of approval, bribing go-betweens with as much as 250 thou bucks to get their itchy fingers on that magic book, the passport, so they could fly to Nairobi just to see the tarmac on their airport, and fly back on the return flight 2 hours later, for just 70$!!! “Fuck KQ and their 380$ bullshit”, they wailed.

After packing their breakfast, they headed right to the airport “u broke askari, can u direct me to the Fly 540 desk?? U broke man u!! Am flying to Nairobi for business, as u can see, maybe al employ u when I return”, they screamed at the helpless airport guards.

On reaching the Fly 540 desk, they were like “hey cutie, maybe we shall go out to dinner after I return from business eh!! So anyways, here’s the 70$, crisp new notes u can see, get me that ticket, am late for my meeting, I think Branson should be waiting!! Faster, am on time bitch!!”

“Sir, the ticket costs 70$, the airport tax is 140$ and tax on insurance for the flight is 10$ sir, so that’ll be 250$........Sir!!!”

“What????? The billboard clearly said 70$!!! Get me yo supervisor, u incompetent misinformed bitch!!”

“Sir, u may not have recognised the very very very very small disclaimer we put at the bottom of that ad, let me spell it out for you now…..TERMS AND CONDITIONS APPLY…..BITCH!!!”

Now the apologetic lumpen has to cancel the proposed meal plans with ticket girl, and change that dime back to Ug shillings so he can catch a cab to Entebbe town, and hop onto those buses of 800/= back to Kla. Now he has to pay that loan he used for bribing the immigration chaps for the passport. Now he has to tell the people in the village that had escorted him to the airport that somehow the flight was cancelled…..at the very last minute!!

Ads………daylight robbers!! Nothing’s too good to be true.

When fuel gets scarce!!

When fuel gets scarce, pump attendants become the most sought after commodities. These guys be so wanted, they should be advised to launch an album or something, cash in on the popularity before Chameleon releases yet another song with the exact same beat!!

These chap’s phones be ringing every second, guys saying “boss, please keep for me fuel in a jerry can, I swear this time al pay, it’s not like those days”, and the reply is always “boss, the mafuta is finish!! Only oils for car and battery and tyres at station”.

Kampala residents then start doing the most bullshit thing since electing that punk for Mayor…….driving aimlessly around. Ok, it’s not aimless, seeing as they are looking for fuel, but what baffles the mind is, even the little fuel left is being burnt up!

As car owners roam around, their sights are set on every gas station. The assumption is that a station that has a queue of at least 3 salon cars, has fuel, even if the chaps are waiting for stuff from the supermarket, we just wait in line.

Gone are the days when Kla chaps were complaining, writing everyday in the papers “petrol stations are TOO MANY!! KCC should do something about licensing these useless businesses”. Funny, now we are wishing there were more!

At a gas station, a chap drives there with a quarter tank left, but he sees a long queue, probably 9 cars, so he joins. The slow drive to the pump means he uses almost half of the quarter tank, only to get just 1 car next in line, then the pump guy crosses his arms “no fuel”. U start wishing we were riding donkeys, what’s the cost, water??

During the bad days after the Kenya election, a single fuel truck would come into the country. Boda riders would follow the truck like flies on a KCC garbage truck! When it would park at a station, their phones were busy, informing everyone of this new discovery of a scarce resource. Within minutes, 50 cars would be parked at the station while the truck is still manoeuvring a proper parking position. Guys would be fighting to form a queue, to the point of almost exchanging blows. This time round however, its been better.

What baffles everyone however is why this fuel scarcity shit keeps happening. Idi Amin, vilified for killing chaps and named as the hugest monster that ever happened to Uganda, had the sense to build huge fuel reserve tanks in Jinja, that store up to 2 million liters of fuel, that can last us 3 days, as the shortage issues are being sorted out, and not at the bad price of 7,000 bucks as it is today in some places.

This government is so pissed off with Amin and anything he did, that they have decided to never use these reserve tanks. The only future thing they will ever want to yap about is “2011 elections and how we shall win” not “how we shall avert a fuel crisis in future”.

Ah what the heck, the usual easter messages shall be coming in from “religious leaders” with the same stuff of “end poverty, fight hunger, end corruption, stop sinning”, maybe they should add in a ka “start using the fuel reserves…….punks!!”