It sounded like something out of a Hollywood script. A few days back a group of suspected con artists were nabbed red handed trying to go away with a bounty of sixty million plus Ethiopian Birr from a downtown bank. Sixty million! Just like that! Just imagine the guys stashing all that money into sacks, slipping away undetected and calling it a day! A ‘profitable one’ as Richard Quest would have said. Thumbs up to those who foiled this act of crime unlimited.
These days we’ve more than our share of con artists in almost every sector. It’s a sad story. There seem more people trying to con you than those trying to give you the helping hand. There is so much forgery of things and there are so many of us with an angel’s face and Lucifer’s heart it’s a swim or sink situation. Much of the time one has to be one’s own gatekeeper lest the unholy souls come crashing in.
Speaking of banks, sometime back a few of us were having this chat. I mean with the brewers having been given their marching orders form the telly, the banks seem to be having a free ride. Every other advert seems to be all about the benefits of putting you money into their care and wait with fingers crossed for the prizes! (Looking at all those high-rises in what is becoming the Wall Street of Addis you can’t escape hearing and thinking about banks. Hey, really nice buildings down there. Hope your services too, would be much nicer.)
Of course, the banks are nice, aren’t they? They advise us we should save now for the rainy days to come. With all those prizes for the taking no advice could be more tempting! The bigger you save the better your chances of winning cars or apartments. Apartments! Isn’t that the nicest music to the ears! Yes, ‘saving big’ is great. There is only one problem; from where, oh from where does the ‘Big Money’ come from!
By the way, a few decades back there was this sixty-something tailor who put some money in a bank close to his residence. Every morning at daybreak his first task was to go where the bank was. I’ll tell you why: He wanted to make sure the bank was still in one piece!
“What do they mean save big and your chances of getting the top prizes increase! That’s not fair. Five hundred birr and five hundred thousand birr should equally make you eligible for every prize on offer!” That’s not much business like, is it?”
“You are complaining because the banks encourage people to save big?”
“Yes, I am.”
“But why!”
“Why not! Tell me where I can get that big money from and I’ll start praising them.” (Off the record, it wouldn’t take me a week to release a song that goes something like “Oh my bank; my precious bank. Why should I think of Heaven where heaven is right here deep inside your vaults?”)
The face of your colleague or that of whoever you’re talking to develops multiple contours just like that! Had it not been for the words that follow you’d have thought he/she was feeling sorry for you. It’s a blessing these days to come across pope who really feel sorry for you!
“Those adverts are not meant for you, wise guy!”
“But they are all over my outdated TV screen.” If you don’t g have a fifty-seven inch monster of a TV in your living room, then whatever you have is outdated.)
“You know what your problem is…”
What! That I’m still stuck with a twenty-one inch set!
“You always try to punch above your weight.” And the only thought that comes to you at that moment is dealing that Tyson uppercut to the guy. He deserves it! He should have told you something like, “Don’t worry, someday you’ll be able to do just that, save big!” Sometimes you feel so unlucky that you wonder if there is something cooking against you by the entire humankind. Why then do all the crumbs come your way and the real beef goes elsewhere? Things just don’t add up when they come your way! You feel as if you are the Field Marshal of all sinners
Imagine not giving the doctor the correct information and blaming him for his reactions. A guy I knew recently had to see a doctor. By the time he came back he was not a very happy guy.
“He is so mean!”
“Who is so mean?”
“The doctor; you should have seen him talking to me.”
“What did he do?”
What Doc. did was press the guy for vital information. The guy claims he was a social drinker with a beer or two every fortnight or so. The doctor, true to his profession, knew better. “I think you are a regular drinker.” Even that was too nice. Over the years this guy had been in much hot water over his excessive drinking!
“He treated me as if I was begging him for money!”
“Were you? Just joking.”
There are too many of us who have made it a habit to tell tall tales and still keep a straight face. The only thing is we have many versions of the same story. We forget the lies we already told, and come up with a different version of the same story.
We are times where many of us are forced to look over our shoulders while many of us are out to crack as many shoulders as we can! Just wondering, why is our basket carrying more than our share of bad apples?
The Ethiopian Herald May 15/2020
