Uncle-in-the-Helicopter ‘Stories!’
Surfing the social media you couldn’t help being impressed. Quite some time back there was this ‘Arada’ guy in the central town. He was supposed to be one of the ‘sophisticated’ guys with quite a reputation for doing things others never dream of! He was the shining star of sorts and he made sure his reputation stayed that way.
He had this wonderful story he never tires of telling. Whenever a helicopter flies overhead he runs and ducks under the nearest shade. No he wasn’t afraid if anything being thrown down! He was scared of his uncle! Yes, yes I could read the question in that smirk of yours; “What has a low flying helicopter has to do with this dude’s uncle?” Well, his good old uncle is in it! Aha! Nothing scarier than an angry uncle seeing you abusing the girls! “If my uncle sees me it’d be trouble!” that might be a harmless joke of someone still wet behind the ears. The story here is many believed him! Yes, we really believed that some mysterious uncle who happens to be in every of those little monsters might see him! None of us had the brains enough to corner him with, “How can your uncle be in every helicopter that flies low?” No way! That would have been blasphemous of us! And he was the kind of guy of with whom you don’t mess, unless you possess the jaws of some Robocop or something!
Ok, fast forward and browsing the social media. Sometimes you try to imagine what the world really looked like before the Internet. We forget so soon that much of the time it’s a lost case. Anyway looking at how we’re treating ‘information’ on the social media you don’t only wonder, you’re worried! Even people you thought were rational enough to detect where the quicksand is, people who wouldn’t test the depth of the river with both feet easily fall to the most bizarre stories. Especially these days with so much literature about our country flying all around , you would expect caution on the part of those who should have known better. Unfortunately that isn’t the case these days with most of us.
A few days back I was discussing about, what else, the situation in the country with a fellow whom I expect has seen and lived it all; the kind of person from whom you expect to benefit some dose of wisdom. He was well-read fellow with whom you can even discuss global affairs let alone domestic ones. A certain interview came up and I was expecting him to break into a hearty laughter. No! He was all business. He said, “What if that he says was true!” What! How in the world could he have any doubt about such a bizarre and outright stupid thing! “You know these days we don’t know all that’s happening!” So what! Yes we don’t know many things; But the fact we are short of information doesn’t mean that we have to be duped by Rip Van Winkle sort of tales. The person who said it must probably be flogging himself for such poor performance. In retrospect maybe I should give credit to that uncle-in-the-helicopter fellow!
Decades back while we were still fresh and the hair hasn’t begun appearing in ‘those places’ there was this guy we almost worshiped as the wisest creature with a pair of legs. We hung to everything he said because they were true! Hmmm… He had one very interesting story and I’m going to tell you about it. He had the ‘information’ how various nations managed the spoon when they stirred. The gold medal stuff of it all was his graphic explanation of how Americans and Russians stirred their tea. The Americans did it clockwise, and the Russians counterclockwise! Wouldn’t that have won some short-short story competition!
No one of us asked “Why?” No one asked “How did you know?” No one asked, “Who told you that?” How can you ask such questions the wisest guy on earth” There might be something one step lower than a lynch mob! ‘The Master’ himself such questions? It’d have been disrespectful and even offensive of us! However, the real gem about this ‘story’ was…we believed him! Believed him and it to everyone who would listen! “Do you know how the Russians stir their tea!” Mentioning only the word Russians would have got you a seat a little to the left of Einstein! The downside was no one had any idea who this Einstein fellow was!
There is this lady who could barely read and write. Someone tells her that we are at the eleventh hour and the world was going to end. Strictly religious woman she could have mentioned some verses to support the ‘information.’ (Her Godfather who somehow destroys the world over and over made sure she never forgets.) He told her he got it from Facebook (‘Facebook’ is already a household name!) That does it. She didn’t need any more verification. If it was on Facebook then it’s true! (I’d have laughed to hear what her Godfather would have said when he’s told it’s on Facebook. “You mean the devil, too, started talking about it?” Ha!)
One for the road; we had this other friend who really knew his ways with the girls of those days. (The no-profile-picture age! Those days when if you wanted a color picture you’ve to find someone who’d travel to Russia! And what ‘color pictures’ they were!) You could imagine how envious of our friend the rest of us were. Not that he’s anywhere to being handsome. (At that age every one of us was handsome! The only thing is the girls didn’t think so; and it costs us dearly!) What this guy does was that he tells them that he owns two cars. Two cars! The interesting part was that one car was always at the garage; and the other let to a friend or relative! And almost every one of them believed him! Not one of them ever enquired why he was treating them to twenty-five cents a cup tea while he owns two cars! And we, even though we knew the secret, admired it for him. He got the girls! After all, the end justifies the means!
Anyways looking to all the bizarre, outrageous and stupid ‘stories’ people seem to believe the gold medal goes to the uncle-in-the-helicopter guy…posthumously, of course!
The Ethiopian herald 15/2021