In the old days the run-up days to any holiday come with the tremors and volcanic eruptions in quite many households’ holiday expenses turning into financial nukes. It seem up to the last hours of the real holiday nothing seems to be working, no plan seems to fall in place and it looks that it’d be a holiday to forget. Of course after days of bickering and all sorts of name-calling, threats of divorce and throwing the kids into foster homes, in many instances the holiday itself somehow turns to be a day to remember indeed. It’d be smiles all round. Isn’t that nice, a supposedly grim and uneventful holidays turning into a day for enjoyment and refurbishing the flesh and in many ways the soul too.
Look when talking about holiday household squabbling on thing comes to mind. It seems the initial volley comes from the ladies of the houses! Come to think of it when you start talking about such issues you feel like you’re stepping on the most slippery of stones. Forget the …ists and the fact it couldn’t come from anywhere else! Particularly not from the hubbies! Not in a million years! That’s why the heated arguments among couples; the men trying to make sense of the senseless as for many of them the nights with the boys are part of the holiday expenses! The fair sex carry all the burden of the preparations, and anyone with the even the slightest knowledge what that means could do nothing but sympathize with them.
“It has been days since I told you to give me holiday expenses! Or are you waiting for me to go on all my furs begging?”
“Take it easy. There’s no need to be angry.” Really! You’re the one who says that. Well, sir, though you’ve every right to tell me to “go, mind my own Go… mn business” I think she has every ‘need’ to be angry. What in the world are you thinking? Just the day you spent close to seven hundred birr for your group of four and if that’s not cause for concern I don’t know what is! Business, there is every reason to be angry. Can you just stop your patronizing if only until you two discuss the issue at hand?
“Did you say angry? But my dear, wonderful husband I’m not being angry. I’m just making a point or two.” The hubby feeling he is in some Garden of Eden for his wife to say such nice things to him
“I don’t understand. What do you mean making a point or two?”
“I feel like crying knowing my dear husband has mentally descended so low he couldn’t even understand the simplest words.” If you think she has gone off line bringing up unrelated matter I can tell you you’d have some catching up to do. More than at any time, these days, words are not taken on at face value. No! If I ask you have “How have you doing these days?” and you think it is about those stomach bugs giving you the sleepless night you might be in for some disappointment. I might be saying, “Don’t tell me you’re still on this earth using up our oxygen!”
“Listen to me,” the lady of the house isn’t finished, not yet. “The price of a mild-sized chicken has gone up to three hundred fifty birr.”
“What? What did you just say?”
“I said a mild-sized chicken costs three hundred and fifty birr.”
“And you think I’m going to spend that much money on some chicken! What are the chicken made of, gold and diamonds?”
“Now, you’re making me really angry!”
If you’re in the same neighborhood buckle up for some shouting match which might linger well into the wee hours of the night. Fast forward to mid-April 2022.
“Are you going to give me holiday expenses I asked for or not?”
“What about the money I gave you three days back?”
“Are you talking about the five hundred birr?”
“Of course, I am! That should cover all your expenses. What more do you want?”
You might say there couldn’t be hubbies so frightfully far from reality; one sure thing is you must be a nice person. Why, while it couldn’t be supported by any facts and figures day-to-day experiences lead us to suspect we’ve more than our share of the dumb and dumber.
“Didn’t anyone tell you how much one chicken costs now?”
“No one has to tell me that. I can guess.”
“Oh, you can, can’t you? But you’ll guess come the next holiday; for now I’ll tell you the price of one chicken.”
“If you say so…”
“One thousand birr.”
“One…one…one what?”
“One thousand birr!”
A nuke! That’s what it is for many!
“I’ll tell you the sequel to this story once the doctors agree on the diagnosis.
A HAPPY EASTER SUNDAY TO ALL!
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SUNDAY EDITION 24 APRIL 2022