I just chewed off some boy’s head for messing with my kid.

Never mind that he was just a kid himself, and that he would probably have got his own head chewed off if he hadn’t done what he did. All I knew was that he messed with my kid, and nobody messes with my kid.

Here’s what happened. Princess gets a weekly allowance. It’s just enough for an ice cream, or half a choc bar. My way of teaching her about the value of money. I’m not sure if it’s working or not, but at least she saves up sometimes – before she buys a bigger choc bar.

So today Princess felt bright and went to the shop to buy some candy. For some strange reason, she bought some dairyfresh instead, and came home without her change.

When she got home, she changed her mind, or realized they owed her money, or just accessed her extra X chromosome, nobody really knows. But the bottom line is she didn’t want the milk anymore. So she went back to the shop and gave them back their milk. But guess what. The idiot wouldn’t give back her money!!

Now this is cash she had saved up for two weeks and restrained herself from using, so she was clearly upset. So my baby comes to me crying and explains what happened. And I get mad.

Why?

Well, for one thing, she’s not allowed to go outside the compound, which clearly, she did. Second, the shop she went to is right next to some local jobless corner – the last place I want her to be, especially after recent events. Three, those same recent events have made me drum it into her head a thousand times [okay, maybe 4 times] not to go outside alone.

So after giving her a finger-tap and quite a scolding for disobeying, and getting irritated that I had to put on some clothes [Sunday is my stay-in-pjs-skip-shower-and laze-around-in-bed day], I threw on a couple of khangas and headed to the shop.

Now mind you a khanga is fairly tight around the ankles when you wear it like I do, so I was looking all Mama Africa and walking all can’t-spread-my-feet-more-than-three-inches.

So anyway, I got to the shop, and after banging several times to get their attention [they were hiding inside the house, the little chickens!] I asked what was going on, and some kid [okay, he’s closer to 18, and kinda chubby, and once really annoyed me coz I wanted a CD burned and he had no idea what I meant but pretended to, and once tried to play all smooth and charming when he was probably high on stale milk] …the kid tells me they don’t accept goods once they are sold.

I calmly asked if she had opened the milk, and they said no, but they don’t accept goods because [at which point he thought it would be a good idea to impress me with his grasp of English. Errrngh WRONG!!] it’s drinkable, and they don’t accept goods once sold. This is the neighbourhood kiosk by the way, not Nakumatt or anything like that.

[And I’m fairly sure he didn’t actually say drinkable, but that’s what he meant]

I then, calmly still, explained that she hadn’t opened it, and she’s just a child, and she made a mistake, and surely they should give her money back. The guy sighed dramatically and was about to give my money back when the other idiot arrived. Much younger this one, with sass. Maybe 12. I call it pre-teen guts.

Anyway, the second idiot explains to me that my Princess is actually owed 100 in change. And that he was the one who had refused to give her money back, coz it’s policy.

I asked, less calm now, why my baby was crying when they actually owed her money, and that surely they can understand that she’s just six years old and she made a mistake, and I fibbed a little that I was the one who had sent her. The idiot child asked me exactly what I had sent her for, since clearly, it wasn’t milk.

By now all pretense of calm was gone, and if there hadn’t been a wrought iron between us I’d have grabbed the punk by his scrawny neck and shook him into next year ! Anyway, he still insisted that he would not give the money back.

I completely snapped. How I wanted to yank him through those bars and sit on him!! Instead I asked if they had no humanity [though I couldn’t think of the word at the time, and I might have said peace instead…]. I mean my six year old was crying so much I thought some kid had beaten her up, just because this angstious idiot wouldn’t give back 700 shillings! [that’s like 30 bob Kenyan by the way, less than a buck]

The idiot child was having none of it, so I asked him to give back my change and stormed off. It was pointed out that I should at least carry the milk, but I snapped that princess didn’t want it, and stormed off with my tiny khanga-restricted steps.

I was totally fuming at the child’s obstinance, and mad that I couldn’t fix my baby’s problem, and trying to milk it [oops, didn’t see that [pu]one!] by reminding her that this is why I want her inside and safe, because the world is full of mean idiots out to steal her money! I reminded her that now she had no milk and no money, when all she’d wanted was a bar of Alpella.

I felt I should let her feel the pinch and let her stay without the money, but I couldn’t resist her poor baby face. And the whole hood had witnessed my scene and were consoling the poor child [mine that is. I care less about the other one’s consolation]. Needless to say, they now know the strange wordless Kenyan has a vicious temper to boot.

I ended up refunding her money, and making her promise not to go to that particular shop again, or to go outside at all. Clearly, it didn’t work, coz she just came to ask me if she can go out. Sigh. Well, at least she asked.

Moral of the day : don’t mess with a mummy. We’re worse than the proverbial scorned female.

I wonder how I’m going to face those two idiot children in the street from now on. I know I won’t go to their shop again, but I can’t just sneer at them forever. I’ll get wrinkles. I might box their ears though. Or sit on them.

And I wonder if I should go back and get that milk. After all, she did pay for it.

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