“You promised to hand the work by Wednesday. Today is Sunday and you still haven’t kept your word. Can you give us any legitimate reason?”
“Well my mom came from the region for emergency medical treatment and I had to be near her 24/7 I didn’t get the time to sit down and finish the work on time. “
Well may God heal his mom! But wouldn’t that be a well wish which should have been made many years back. It has been more than a decade since the guy’s mom passed away. But being ungrateful for all she has done bringing up as best as her means allowed her he still uses and abuses her name as protection for all the things he fails to do good and all the things he doesn’t do at all. She is at the back of all his request because he thinks using her name would allow him fool everyone up and down the social ladder.
That, dear readers, a present and immediate dagger hovering over us all. Most of us think that we could always cook up stories and fool others at will. For many of us much of the rest of the world is a stupid collection of human beings who are so uniformed and mentally weak that we could kick them around and they would take that as blessing of sorts.
When one thinks that one could go away with stories framed for the specific occasions one forgets that there are the smart ones who put one in the place one should be; the place where practical jerks are placed until maybe they start using other brains nature gave them. That’s ‘think!’ When people believe that your brains aren’t alert enough to look into things and make decisions based on up-to-date and verified information then you’re in for real difficult and frustrating times.
They aren’t willing to hear to whatever you say because in their eyes you’re one to be fooled easily and being led to the slaughter without a single word of protest. There were times when one could come up with all sorts of narratives however out-of-the-world and bizarre they might be and go away unscathed. In fact admiration precedes the questions and inquiries which many times than not may never come.
But believe me and few things, if any, would be as frustrating as being taken for a fool and people trying to mislead you about a hundred and one things.
“Look I’ll tell you what you should do with him.”
“What should I do to make him do my wish?”
“You have to do nothing. Don’t you know that many people are fool these days! You could make them believe or do whatever you want as long as you know how to talk to them.”
“I never thought along those lines.”
“Then I’ve to tell you that you’re in real trouble. The world is speeding twice faster than you could catch up and better learn the tricks before others make a fool of you.”
There seem to be many of us who think that it’s a world where it’s far easier to fool people with false and fully cooked up narratives than it has ever been. You might say those might be somewhat heavy handed conclusions. Well, thanks for being so nice as niceness is in short supply. I mean things don’t necessarily have to come on our doors knocking in real time. Just a few minutes of watching the global the evening news is enough to tell you that in this world of ours making fools of others has grown into an entire industry which a little down the road might control humanity.
But then the sad thing is that as there are many of us trying to make fools of others there are among ‘the others’ those who easily, perhaps too easily, fall into our traps. That’s the most worrying thing. Recently there was this domestic helper who was forced to change employment as her former bosses tried to cut back on her already chickenfeed pay. Now until now those who knew her took her for a genuinely smart young lady who could barter you for whatever thing she wants and you wouldn’t notice; at least not until the deal has been struck and you find yourself in the strangest of situations.
Luckily only a few days after leaving her former bosses she finds employment. She was carrying her belongings to her new work place when a man who says looked like he was well into his late fifties offered to help her and she didn’t have to think twice when she gave him the big suitcase into which much of her belongings were stuffed. How could she refuse when a man with so much grey her offers to help her. His slow movement didn’t bother her as the suitcase was very real heavy. As they snaked their way through the narrow village roads several meters behind the man was another well-built and smartly dressed twentyish fellow. She recalled these images only once adversity struck!
At a certain spot the grey haired man gives of wads of ten birr notes and asks her to buy him bottled water as he was thirsty. Carrying such a load thirsty was what he should be. She goes to a shop located some fifty or so meters to the left. She buys the bottled water and no sooner has she started walking back her world falls apart. The man wasn’t there. She sprints the few meters and looks up and down the road and he was nowhere in sight! That suitcase held almost everything she bought over the years whenever she had the extra money to do so. But once her shock subsided having came to terms to the fact that she has been robbed she noticed the young man following them was also nowhere!
Perhaps the very fact she, without any second thought or hesitation, accepted the offer for help from the man and then was willing to go buy him bottled water while he could have done himself proved to the two crooks she was indeed just another fool! Yes many times than not our failure to take a second or two more before innocently agreeing to such offers coasts the day and more.
Yes, be nice; but not to the point of being taken for some fool!
The Ethiopian Herald November 26/2023