3CB

…and it’s nobody’s fault. We may desperately want someone to blame. But sometimes, stuff happens simply because stuff happens. The only thing is … there’s always an effect. Call it karma or *insert relevant physics law here* but the fact remains – every action has a reaction that’s generally equal and opposite.

Take for instance my Saturday night matatu trip. I’m sure everyone has had a similar situation. You ask the makanga for change and he claims he doesn’t owe you any. Or he asks you to pay your fare twice, claiming you didn’t give him any money at all. His argument goes something like this. “Ati how much did you give me? 200? Look at the money in my hand. Do you see a 200/= note here? Do you think I’m stupid?”

At this point, the passenger will take moral offense at being branded a thief, while the makanga will become increasingly aggressive, listing statistics of how often passengers play this ‘trick’. He will throw around terms like, “Mi niko radar. Umenizoea sana. Kwani unanionaje? Tafuta mjinga mwingine, sio mimi.” On certain routes, the passenger may even be violently ejected from the vehicle. It happened to my house-help, but that’s a story for another blog post.

Because I’ve been in this situation more than once, I always take the passenger’s side. But I also wonder what makes the makanga so vehement. Is it pride and low self esteem, a preconceived notion that the passengers look down on him/her which results in aggressive behaviour? Or is it the same ruthless attitude that makes them hike fares on a whim, because they feel entitled to the money you worked so hard to earn? Is it a hardness of heart that comes from constant (often deserved) abuse at the hands of said passengers? I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard a makanga say, ‘Tumezoea matusi yenu,” though I’ve wondered if they ask themselves – genuinely ask themselves – what they did to deserve it.

One time, when the ‘change’ argument arose, I was sitting next to the makanga. I saw him give a passenger excess change, and saw the passenger pause for a puzzled second, then smile as he pocketted the money. Ten minutes later, another passenger asked for her change, and the makanga launched into abuse, claiming he had already given it to her. I quietly explained his mistake to him, and the whole issue was resolved with laughter and jokes all round.

Saturday night – not so much. I was sitting next to the makanga again, but this time, I had my baby with me, and was more focused on her than anything else. She had earphones on, and her head was in my laps, so when a passenger asked for change and the makanga started abusing her, my baby raised her head and asked why everyone was shouting. I increased the volume on the iPod and told her not to worry about it. Meanwhile the makanga abused the female passenger so much that she started crying and got off the matatu. I felt sick inside but didn’t defend her. I told myself I hadn’t seen what had happened and had no grounds to protest. No one else in the matatu spoke up.

Still, no good deed goes unpunished, and karma got me later that night. On our way home, we stopped at a local chips joint to grab some take-away dinner. Fries, sausages, pilau, beef stew, and apple juice – a completely balanced diet of carbs, proteins, vitamins, condiments, and junk. The place was pretty hectic, and I had a nagging feeling the attendant hadn’t packed all of our food. I asked twice but she insisted, so we left. We stopped twice more to pick pain killers and tomato sauce from the kiosk. Then we got home and unpacked. The sausages were missing. In related news…

I was already in a dangerous mood and didn’t want to argue, so when I went back to the chips shop and the attendant swore she’d packed my all my food, I just took out some money and bought two more sausages. I grumbled the entire time, but she kept insisting, and since I willingly gave her more money, she probably decided I was trying to con her, just like the lady in the matatu. Never mind that my little girl was with me, and that I’d never set such an example for her.

A part of me worries that I did set an example inadvertently, that my daughter now thinks it’s okay for people to walk all over you, take your money and not give you what you paid for. I could have kicked up a fuss and gotten a refund or more sausages. I could have boycotted the shop in protest, but they make the best fries in the hood. I figured she probably did pack them, only she put them in someone else’s bag, so me insisting would only have cost her money. Or maybe I’m just a bigger coward than I give myself credit for.

A few weeks ago, I needed a new battery for my watch. I had some spares in the house that I got for 50 bob, but I lost them. I tried to find the watch-maker I bought them from, but he moved, so I went to a different shop. They charged me 200 bob for a 50 bob battery, made me wait for half an hour, then replaced my battery with the same one they took out. At least I think that’s what they did, because they went round the whole shop, sent a man to a different shop, and gave me a battery that was dead as soon as I got home. I thought about going back to demand a refund, but I have no proof, and they probably don’t remember me. Then again, I walked past the other day, and I could swear they gave me the side-eye.

It’s not that I have the cash to spare. The 200 bob I wasted at the watch shop will be burning my pocket for a while. And the 140 I lost at the chips shop? Well, the attendant didn’t see me trudging back home and literally counting coins for bus fare because my salary is late again. Still, it’s not her fault the shop was full and she was confused. It’s not the watch-shop’s fault that they’d run out of my size of batteries. It’s not the female passenger’s fault that the makanga was … a makanga.

If a matatu crew gives you excess money, it’s not your job to fix their maths. They con passengers every day, right? It’s simply your lucky day. And it’s not your fault if you get home and find extra groceries in your bag, or sausages in your chips. Why would you take them back? What are you – stupid? Still, there are always consequences, and luckily for you, you don’t get to see what your ‘good fortune’ will cost somebody else. Point is, sometimes, shit happens simply because shit happens. Circle of life. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger yadda yadda. And manure makes things grow, right? So simpletonic, idealistic folk like myself should simply learn not to take it personally.

♫ Pure Shores ♫ All Saints ♫

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♫ It’s friday night, got visions in my head ♫
♫ But nothin’ on mind, so let the music play ♫
♫ So let me hear you say ♫

For the longest time, this was my perfect party song. Not that I can have a party song since I’m not really a party girl. I’ve only been to the rave once in my life. At age 28. With bloggers. I hated it. And I sometimes always carry novels to parties. My perfect Friday night involves books, series, ice cream, blankets, loud music, cartoons, warm feet, cookies, and my baby girl. Still, if I were to have a Friday song, this would be it.

♫ Manicure, pedicure, so we look tight ♫
♫ And there’s just enough money for the night out ♫
♫ So now it’s time we go hop up in the 6-4 ♫
♫ Drop top down headed for the disco ♫
♫ Maybe we might catch some guys eyes ♫
♫ If we don’t, we don’t care, cuz we still ♫
♫ Gonna have a good time ♫

It’s a pretty old song – late nineties I think, when I was in high school. (Actually. Google says it’s 2002. Interesting.) Which explains why I never learned the words. I had it on a mix-tape, between ♫ Why don’t you and I ♫ by Chad Croeger and Santanna, and ♫ Video ♫ by India Arie. Today, in a spate of nostalgia, I dug it up on YouTube, to help me get into the Friday spirit. We’re having one of our office meetings, which often involve tequila, red bras, powerpoint, and people taking their pants off. Just another day at the Agency. Sigh.

♫ We pull up in the valet ♫
♫ We turning heads like a Hummer on the freeway ♫
♫ We grace threw crowd eyes on us ♫
♫ People st-st-stutterin’ sayin’ hey who are they ♫
♫ Wall to wall, back to back packed so tight ♫
♫ But VIP is where is where we kick it for the whole night ♫
♫ I be watching these guys peeping us out ♫
♫ But they faking, and they scared We don’t care ♫
♫ we gonna have a good time ♫

Thing is – listening to my Friday song, I realise how ridiculous the lyrics are. They have some pretty bad rhyme schemes too. And the spelling – what! Still, it had a sexy naughty video and a good dance beat, so just like I did in ’99 … um … 2002 … I’ll bop along and sing the words I know. Enjoy your Friday night people, and play safe.

♫ No matta what (Party all night) ♫ Toya ♫

I don’t have a solid reason for not smoking. It just never sparked my interest, which is a good thing, considering how compulsive it can be. And before today, I had only smoked two cigarettes. The first one was in 2003, in an attempt to impress my boyfriend, the father of my baby. He thought I was too uptight and would benefit from a walk on the wild side. He bought me a vanilla scented cancer stick and watched me while I smoked it. I even managed to avoid the embarrassing tell-tale cough. Unfortunately, rather than be jazzed, he was upset at my proficiency. He didn’t believe it was my first one.

My second cigarette was on a day like today. My mood was crappy, work was stress, and I thought a cigarette would make me feel better. After all, it works for everyone else at the office. I’ve heard tons of stories about the friendliness and camaraderie of smokers. So I didn’t think it would be hard to get someone to bum me one. Surprisingly, everyone I asked said no. See, I’m apparently the office goodie-goodie, and no one wanted to be responsible for bringing me to the dark side. I don’t really get that about smokers. They love their cancer sticks, but don’t want anyone to join them. It’s like telling a girl she’s beautiful, just before you tell her you don’t want her. Sigh. In the end, I bought a Dunhill from the kiosk.

I grabbed a ‘fellow smoker’ and sat with her, attempting (and failing) to blow smoke rings. I didn’t feel any more relaxed, and when I asked why, she smiled and said, “You didn’t inhale.” Then she stubbed hers out and said, “And you’re better off that way.” I love that girl, I really do. Unfortunately, she doesn’t work with me anymore, so when my uncharacteristic craving resurfaced, she wasn’t there to help me out. Also, there’s no kiosk nearby to buy a stick of Dunhill.

I walked into Secret Garden and bought a pack instead. 200 bob that I will never get back. Walking into the restaurant was strange. There were a lot of good-looking waiters, all eager to help but not sure where to start. They gave me dazzling smiles and puzzled stares as I walked past them and right up to the bar, where I proceeded to squint at the packs they had on offer – Marlboro, Embassy Lights, and Dunhill Blue. Everyone at the office uses Embassy, but two of my friends use Dunhill. I asked the price of both, and took my brand new pack to my roof-top haunt.

Sitting in my usual spot, I wondered if I needed pointers. I’d decided to deep-throat today, do the full inhale and swallow. It seemed easy enough, in theory. I puffed in and out twice before I let smoke on the inside. I expected to sputter and cough, but instead I felt a deep icky scratching in my chest. It was like a thousand pinpricks were attacking my lungs, and I could almost see the dark evil smoke billowing around in there. Never mind that cigarette smoke is wispy grey.

My eyes stung with barely shed tears, not from the smoke, but from the darkness in my soul, the darkness that had plagued my day and parted me with 200 bob, in a vain attempt to burn the pain away. And burn it did, filling my insides with a different kind of pain as I ran statistics in my mind. ‘Thousands of non-smokers die every day.” The thought brought on more tears, so thank goodness I’m not wearing any make-up today.

Once the shock of the scratchiness wore off, I noticed that swallowing had one side effect – there was no smoke left to blow out! Breathing in grey wisps and breathing out nothing is decidedly less sexy than the smoke rings in the movies. So I tried out a different technique. I’d breathe in, hold the smoke in my mouth for three seconds, then swallow. As I did, I reflexively breathed out, letting some wisps out of my nostrils while the rest settled into itchy, scratchy, murky, bliss.

My cigarette was half gone by then, and the scratchiness wasn’t nearly as annoying. It felt almost soothing now, like tickling my insides with a bottle-brush. Not that I’ve actually tried it out, but I imagine that’s what it would feel like. I shut my eyes, enjoyed my smoke, and typed out this post in my head where – I admit – it sounded far more poetic. I started to feel relaxed, though I don’t know if it was the nicotine, the sunshine, or the wandering of my mind.

I wondered how many sticks it took to kick off an addiction, and whether my lungs were black. I wondered if my teeth were now as brown as my filtered fingertips. I wondered if anyone would want to kiss me now. Then I wondered why no one had invented a pocket-sized ash-tray. The roof gets pretty filthy, with cigarette butts, scattered cardboard and discarded receipts, but someone cleaned it up a few days ago, and it seemed a shame to muck it up again. So I found a hole in the ‘ground’ for my ashes, and gathered up my stubs inside my fist.

The first stick was gone, and it seemed natural to light up a second. In fact, I wondered if I had time to do the whole pack. I checked my watch. Ten minutes had passed since I started. For some reason, I was reluctant once I lit it. I watched it burn for a full minute before taking a drag. The scratchy sensation was gone, replaced by a sharp, mildly painful, yet intensely pleasant raking in my chest. So as I dragged, I thought about the taste. It was sharp, biting, and surprisingly sexy. I worried about being turned on by the taste of cigarette smoke. Some guys think girls that smoke are sexy, but others think they’re skanky and obscene. Did it make me one of ‘those’ girls, the ones ‘nice guys’ so detest?

#TriggerWarning

Then my mind drifted to a story I once read in a  Parents’ Magazine. It said trashy romance novels were doing more harm than good. A lot of them describe rape as something desirable. They talk about gorgeous roguish men taking women as sex slaves, raping them repeatedly as they try to escape. Yet at the end of 300 pages, the victim is alarmingly in love with her captor, as he declares his undying devotion, claiming he was only trying to make her love him. Apparently, a lot of women have rape fantasies and ask their partners to simulate rape. Some go as far as walking in high risk places, or hiring ‘rape crews’ to abduct and torture them. It’s called Designer Kidnapping. Seriously, Google it. It’s officially a thing. ‘Clients’ usually have a ‘safe word’ they can use if things get out of hand, but of course there have been … accidents.

I don’t judge how people use their girly ( and boy-ey) bits, as long as there’s consent on all parts. But I’ve experienced rape. I know what it’s like. And I can only feel sorry for the girls that think it’s cool, because they have no idea what they’re asking for, and there’s a reason why rape is a woman’s greatest fear. Of course, once you become a mother, it’s only your second-greatest fear. *shudder* Either way, the thought haunted me, the thought of gifted, twisted writers showing rape as something sexy. It made me wonder about this post, made me wonder whether one day, some kid would say they picked up their first cigarette after reading 3CB. Sigh.

In stories, the smoker always stubs out their cigarette as a plot point. Me, I smoked both sticks to the stump, watching as the ashes singed the once-gleaming-but-now-dank filter. I curled the second stub into my fist and wondered about lighting a third. My tension was gone, and I took a few deep breaths, letting my eyes slip shut and enjoying the sunshine. My lungs seemed hungry, drawing in the clean unscented air with conviction. The only problem was … it wasn’t unscented. I could still sense the smoke in the air, feel the mist in my nose, taste the tang on my tongue. Strange. I stayed up there maybe half an hour more, just breathing, but still the smoky flavour wouldn’t leave me. I knew I should be replusled, but instead, it felt oddly satiating. The memory of the smoke was tangible, and very, very soothing.

I eventually got up. It was time to go down and rejoin the world. As I tucked my pack and picked up all my garbage, I saw three girls in the corner, They were huddled in a circle, eyes, closed, hands held. I came up for a  smoke. They came up to pray. I’m not one of the good girls anymore. As I type, it’s been almost an hour, but I can still feel the taste upon my tongue, and I’m still throwing glances at the pack inside my desk. I wonder if these are the beginnings of addiction.

I wonder if my clothes smell like tobacco, so I check. Not really, my perfume is pretty strong. But my fingers have the scent that seems to seep right through my skin. I wonder if it’ll help me lose weight. Some people say cigarettes, vodka, and bunny-thons work better than any gym, though they do have a bunch of side-effects. Like the ashy burning patches at the ends of my fingers from trying to smoke the thing down to the stub.

I once read an anti-smoking magazine. “Nicotine is the only drug that kills when used properly.” It then went on to describe the benefits of smoking in detail. Which took about two pages. At which point I wondered if the title was sarcastic. Will I smoke again? Maybe. Possibly. Probably. After all, I do have a whole pack in my desk. Last night, a friend offered me a glass of red wine. I smiled and said, ‘I don’t drink.’ He raised an eyebrow but said nothing, because he knows that sometimes, when the mood is right – or maybe when the mood is wrong – I do. Next time, he might offer me a cigarette. I wonder if I’ll smile, lower my head and say, ‘I don’t smoke.’ And I wonder if he’ll smile and nod, or shake his head with sadness as he offers me a light.

♫ Iris ♫ Googoo Dolls ♫

Edit:

Five years later, during a particularly rough week at work, I finally learned to inhale. I had joined the office smokers on the balcony, and while nobody would bum me one, somebody offered to share his. It was an Embassy Light, and I watched him, and mimicking his technique. Lord, the head-rush! I see how people get addicted to these things! I asked if they were laced, and they probably thought it was cute. At least I didn’t cough and sputter.

Of course the rough day turned into a rough week and I ended up working my way through an entire pack. Turns out the head-rush is ephemeral, which is why you keep needing more. After my pack was gone, I didn’t buy another one. It’s not a habit I want to have to kick.