Ephrem Endale Contributer
“Have a nice day.” I mean no term could have sounded more musical than “Have a nice day;” Even in your darkest hour, when someone wishes you ‘a nice day’ it can serve as some painkiller. But then sometimes it doesn’t work out that way.
But, every cell in your body conspires so that you wouldn’t be any closer to a ‘nice day’ as you aren’t to the twenty million lottery jackpot. Things look so grim that no amount of the finest words would do the trick. In fact anyone wishing you ‘a nice day’ is in ‘enemy territory!’
It is one of those far from nice days where the world seems to have flipped on its head. Nothing seems to be going right for you. Every single cell in your body seems to have malfunctioned. Believe me, when you feel life is being unfair to you and to you only the sweetest of singing of the birds would sound like an old truck’s motor which has gone bust in the middle of a lonely road. The guy whom you thought was the funniest guy in the world next to the Charlie Chaplin guy becomes the most boring of the lot.
You say to yourself, “Hey man, just cool down. No one would give the slightest notice that you are in the darkest of moods. This is your war!” Well, what to do now…Of course, go to the movies! Why didn’t I think of that earlier! To your surprise a cowboy fi movie is playing. In the age of Avatar! Yes; since cowboy films are your childhood favorites you say, “Now, I’m not to miss that!”
Well like the Billy-the-kid sort of gunslinger shoots down half the town and the very hairy sheriff could do nothing about it. The ‘hero’ reloads his six-shooter, if indeed he ever does, after blowing twenty odd heads off. For some reason you don’t jump in your seat like you used in your early teens. In fact, it so…so – this is hard to say – stupid! After taking an entire town single-handedly he goes to the mountains.
It is target practice for him as he fells ‘Red Indian’ after ‘Red Indian.’ That’s what we called them, Red Indians. We cheered as they fell down the cliffs and the cigar-smoking gunslinger goes through the whole thing without as much of a scratch.
“They got what they deserved!” our too green minds convinced us. It was a miracle how Charles Bronson’s trigger finger didn’t fly off his hand after so much pressure.
It’s only now you hear people saying that it was closer to what we now categorize as genocide. No you’re going to be part of that. There comes a time in life when in the movies the martial arts hero who throws a hundred and one people over the cliff is no more your hero! You leave the cinema halfway through the film. You’re barely out the door when you run into this girl from your village.” you exchange pleasantries though ‘pleasant’ is the last thing you were.
After minutes of taking about practically nothing it’s time for her to go on her way. She gives you that smile which a few times plunged you into ‘sinful’ thoughts and the bombshell follows;
“Have a nice day.” What! I mean you’re in the middle of some mental tsunami and this lady tries to play the nice-girl-on- the-block game with “Have a nice day.”
What does she mean by have a nice day! How can I have a nice day when my wife reads me the riot act every time I get home a few minutes after seven PM? How can I have a nice day when the boss is breathing down my neck just because I happened to be someone not from his place of work? How can I have a nice day when a political bigwig is trying to run me off my property?” No young lady, I can’t have a nice day and it wasn’t nice of you either to wish me one!
It sounds bizarre. A guy I know recently was a couple of months away from parting with his financial problems which have been haunting him for years. He was on the verge of winning this project which, if realized, would change his life forever in ways even he wouldn’t have dreamt.
It is going to be a complete overhaul as the twenty-one inch TV set becomes history with the fifty five inch flat screen HD takes its place! It was a done deal; well…almost. Like a frustrating climax for a novel at five minutes to midnight he’s told, “The project had been shelved.” It was a vicious blow under the belt.
The same day he heard the scariest news of his life this friend calls.
“Hey, how about you and me having a few beers this afternoon. I’ll pay.”
That does it. He hangs up. “What does he mean by saying he’d pay? Does he think I’m so port heat I can’t pay for my own beer?” he redials and calls his friend all kinds of names. He later recalls, rather apologetically, “I thought he was mocking me for losing the project.”
“Have a nice day?” Ouch! Did I rock any boats?
The Ethiopian Herald December 6/2020
