The guy leads moderate life. You know that life when you don’t have any major necessity lacking and you don’t also have the little extra to spare; you know like taking out the boys for an evening of draught beer. But this guy had friends with really fat wallets and he never have to worry about paying for three course meals at the plush spots of the city and for the drinks. What’s more his friends always want him by their sides since he really knows how to be the life of the party.
Recently things began changing. His friends see him with a 90+ grand mobile phone and their initial reaction was that for him money is the last thing to worry about. Someone must have bought it for him. But, no! He coughed up all the 90+ grand birr! It was too much for his close friends to take since they were well aware of what kind of life he leads and were also close to his spouse. It created a real nasty stir and his friends demanded to be told the reasons for his actions. His reason was shocking;
“All my friends have demanded why he has done that since he was one of the meticulously planned souls around. He says that his friends had mobile sets of one hundred fifty thousand birr phones.” So what! So according to the story he didn’t want “…to be left behind!” Strange! And the sad gets sadder with the knowledge that he had cleaned out his savings almost the last ‘damned’ cent!
His wife, one of his friends likened to an earthy angel, hasn’t yet been told. The fear is that when she finds out their house would be tired into a warzone. She might be likened to an earthly angel minus the wings but when the going gets tough and she has to make a stand she could be a tigress difficult to control.
Now the guy we are talking about is somewhere in his early forties and had stayed friends with his rather wealthy friends for the better part of two decades. And it is said they had all the respect in the world for him. So the outstanding question is what made him tick anti-clockwise this time around so much as to buy such an expensive apparatus in these economically hard times.
I’ve a friend who leads a very humble life where every birr matters and is handled with care. With his three kids in private schools life is becoming real tough. Now his twelve year old son tells him he needed a mobile phone. What! What the hell does he need a mobile phone for? Well it happened that his school chums all seem to have smart phones and he feels as left out. Now believe me you wouldn’t want to be a parent in such a situation. It is real tough. With expenses of all kids piling up every month a smart phone is the last thing he could afford.
Believe me it’s real hard to convince the kids these days.
“Why do you need a smart phone?”
“Dad all my friends have smart phones! I’m the only one without one and they are mocking me.”
“Look, when I was your age we didn’t even have decent canvas shoes let alone mobile phones. And now you’re asking me to buy you a thirty-thousand birr phone!”
“But dad, when you were my age mobile phones haven’t been invented!” Ha! Ha! Ha! That must be what they call slam and dunk or something that sounds like that in basketball. Choose your words when talking with kids these days. When it comes to mobile phones or all the electronic gadgets you’d be left speechless seeing the things they can do! So, “When I was your age…” has lost its significance and using it would only bring the smirks and the knowing glances with the message, “I couldn’t believe he/she is so backward!” I tell you the kids these days are ‘smart’ in ways you don’t expect. Another friend of mine who asks his eleven year-old daughter to intervene whenever his mobile phone gives him headaches or his forty-something inch flat screen misbehave. He has no idea where in the world his daughter amassed such knowledge!
So our fellow with the 90+ grand mobile phone is in a real fix. These days it’s said that he seems to have woken up from his self-induced trance and the reality has hit him real hard. For those close this was a very sad turn of events. It is one of those problems where you don’t have a plan B lifejacket or any real plan for that matter. If he had been as planned as he usually was he would have clung to his not so sophisticated phone which fulfills all his needs and serves him well all. Where in this wild world can he get all that mosey to put it back into the account before his wife gets wild of the story!
Of course he could always ask his wealthy friends and they could throw twice the amount his way no strings attached. In fact they might even ask him why he didn’t tell them he needed a new phone in the first place so that they could have bought him one like the ones they use. But coming up with the words “Look guys, I need a new phone;” would be like turning the muzzle of the gun on one’s own head! Being someone who never went to anyone, family of friends, asking for financial help such a demand would be the darkest action of his adult life.
Rather luckily his wife hasn’t yet asked to use his phone which she occasionally does. When that happens nothing would be nice. Those closest to him have proposed to talk to her smoothly and convince her it was an innocent mistake on the hubby’s part. Innocent what! Innocent and throwing away 90+ grand!
But even then such stupidity with no parallels is difficult to defend.
It isn’t easy to tell such a story to the no-nonsense spouse for her house is her palace and she maintains it accordingly. The feeling of being betrayed would be so much so that even the peacemakers might initially be taken as complicit in the outrage committed.
There’ is no question that most of us crave the high life; ‘high life’ being drinking yourself to unconsciousness and doing all those nasty, back road things which no morally intact person does. Did I say ‘morally intact person! Why the hell am I talking about! Even Hollywood seems to have run out of ideas creating ‘morally intact’ characters.
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SUNDAY EDITION 11 JUNE 2023