Of Kids, Food Poisoning and Spiders (I freaking hate them!)

As I write this, I am suffering from food poisoning, I am weak, cranky and on rehydration medication that tastes like diluted pee. At the same time, 70-something kids are seeking my attention and in a few minutes 70-something more will be arriving. Oh, great! They are here already. Now I have to stop writing go usher in the new kids and hope to goodness that I will not lose my train of thought and more importantly, I will not have to leave 70-something kids unattended,

as I frantically try to locate the nearest bathroom. You are probably wondering how I got this, supposed, food poisoning and why on earth they entrusted this crazy man with 70-something innocent souls.

If you read my previous post, you will realize that I had an epiphany (read the voices in my head staged a revolt) and it hit me, crap! I almost joined the corporate slave ship. It must have been the desks, the mahogany wall that made me feel like I was in a coffin, the soul wringing fluorescent lights, the girls in short skirts (okay that they didn’t mind too much) or the boss man. Anyway, four days into camp and I felt like the corporate Che Guevara. I had just left the office gig, I was having fun with kids, doing outdoor things that make you spit adrenaline, I was a story teller, I could write about it, heck I was a corporate pirate. With all these thoughts and revelations, the last thing on my mind was what I ate. I couldn’t care less. It was buffet. Every time I got to the serving point the voices would shout, choosing is for office sissy fairies and I would put everything on my plate. Then I would look for a faucet and again, washing hands is for girlie tie-hugging adrenaline intolerant sissy fairies. The sissy fairies part got to me. Fairy was bad enough. Sissy, let’s not even go there; but sissy fairy? I wasn’t going to be a sissy fairy! The last thing I remember was dipping a piece of chapatti into a bowl of custard and wondering what that peculiar taste was; and being that I was facilitating a high ropes (think fear factor, poles and wires) the taste must have been from something I touched earlier and trust me, it wasn’t apple pie.

Somewhere between me running towards the bathroom and the excruciating pain in my gut that felt like I was giving birth to a rhinoceros through my belly button, a thought crossed my mind: Who the heck are all these kids and where did they come from? Then, darkness.

When I was in high school, our classes looked like a model representation of Mukuru Kwa Reuben slum.  A normal sized classroom usually had in it 60 students, each with a locker built differently from the next. Some desks looked like they were built in the 80’s some looked like they were built on older desks and looked like a two story wooden structure, some were new, others were colored. The desks only were enough to make you feel like you were staring at a slum from a bird’s point of view. Then there were the books littered everywhere, some in green ‘Marlboro’ plastic bags, some with covers, some without; and they were everywhere: on the floor, in between desks, under seats that rarely matched their desks, in the corners and on the rafters. Walking into a class room was daunting enough; looking up, was another experience all together. Old metal boxes filled with books, old Uchumi, Nakumatt and Ukwala polythene bags barely tied at the handles, filled with books and past papers. It was beyond slum like.

It hadn’t occurred to me that all this clatter would make a great home for all sorts of creatures. Never mind the fact that our class room had been a home for bats, mice and even stray puppies. You looked up while seated and you thought it was one of those Inception scenes where the world folds and another one forms right above your head. I hadn’t noticed the silky white stuff flowing from one of the metal boxes to my seat’s backrest. I hadn’t realized the eerie silence when a great part of the class noticed what was going on. I hadn’t realized that at that moment I would be confronted by my greatest fear, multiplied a million times.

It started with a strange brush on the neck. I must have thought it was Robert, he had weird touchy habits, but I ignored. I couldn’t ignore it the eighth time or the ninth and so I looked back ready to give him one of my ineffective sura ya kazi fight faces only to find him gawking at my neck in horror. He might as well have taken a pen, stabbed himself in the eye running in a panic stricken fit of terror. Instead, he whispered, “Don’t move.” Don’t move? Don’t freaking move? Of course I will move thank you very much! I jumped, pushing my desk in front (not that there was any space to move anywhere except up) in the process taking the not so thin spider web with me, and with the millions of baby spiders. Yes millions, yes spiders. Let’s get one thing straight. I always write about zombies, vampires, voices, freaky stuff. I never write about spiders because spiders, spiders are in their own category. It goes something like: things that give you a scare,

things that will scare the freckles off your skin,

things that will kill you if you are scared,

things that will kill you even if you are not scared,

things that will kill you period,

then spiders.

Spiders are God’s way of telling me not to mess with Him.

So I stood there covered in little eight legged cretins all of them walking around practically calling me momma. God knows where their mom was…probably watching me waiting for me to make the wrong move. Ever seen a man drowning? (Actually I almost drowned last week, but that is another story), every attempt at grasping the air is met with a great feeling of disappointment as you realize this is it, you are going to die. So as I tried frenziedly to remove the invisible web of death surrounding me, I felt nothing but air and the feeling of imminent death. Spiders are scary.

Eventually I managed to take off my sweater and after rolling on the ground while screaming and making like a drowning man, I managed to get all those little sons of…okay (breathing), I managed to get every spider…what do you call a baby spider? Anyway, I got rid of the damned things. I couldn’t use that sweater again. It was now polluted, it probably was now a colony of angry man-eating spiderlings (you can put three red lines I do not care, Word!) anybody who wore that sweater would be wrapped in spider web and taken back to the old rusty box full of books where the mother nest was, along with certain death. That evening I saw Robert wearing my sweater, I said a prayer for him. Now I feel like such a tool.

The next day I made a decision; to rid this world of this eight legged plague and to accomplish this, I would need an army. A devoted, strong willed, spirited army and since I didn’t have the money to buy such an army (is it me or is there a lot of rhyme going on), I would build one from scratch. On one of those holidays where the first week at home you feel like you escaped from Alcatraz then a week later your folks decide you are going for camp and a few days in it and it dawns on you that you just got transferred to Guantanamo Bay, I had an epiphany. Here we were, away from home, away from school taking in whatever rubbish the camp counselors fed us and it hit me, this was the perfect place to start my army.

 So every school holiday when your child, nephew, niece or cousin is away at camp, know that they are undergoing secret military training in the war against spiders. I made a vow to eliminate this scary scourge and so every time I have a chance to interact 70-something kids, I take it as an opportunity to impart some life skills in them just to make sure they grow up to be better than we are and on the side turn them into little spider hating soldiers, all in an attempt to make the world a better place.

P.S. last night while…never mind I was in the bathroom and this huge spider appears from nowhere. Thankfully I was on my way out, but it was around 3 a.m. so I had to make a racket so that my house mate (for some reason I find it weird to use ‘my boy’ and 3 a.m. in the same sentence) could wake up and conveniently ask what’s wrong. The thing died at around 3.40 a.m. and coincidentally my post today is about spiders…it’s a sign I tell you – the invasion is near!

Stories That Change Lives... (Especially this one)

Design is fun, only when you are designing something you believe in. I told myself these words a couple of weeks ago while I was seated behind an unnecessarily big desk staring at some design work I had been working on. It was a sad time. It was at a time when it hit me that I really do not want to keep on doing what I had been doing for close to two months. It wasn’t fun, it wasn’t worth it, not because I was some spoilt kid who felt like the world wasn’t revolving around me, but simply because I no longer believed in what I was doing, there was no purpose to it, no life.

I need to emphasize this, I spent two months of my life doing something I did not believe in. It takes 2 months for two cells to do whatever they do and form something close to a human being, it takes 2 months for a man to determine whether the chick he likes is a dude or is just a chick with a penchant for muscle cars and leather jackets and it takes 2 months to learn how to tango. Okay, the last one I made up since everyone says it takes 2 to tango so I thought who really knows how long it takes these two to tango? See what I’m getting at here? Two months is a long time. Two months later I have decided not to continue with that job. So what is a young writer supposed to do in this economy (and blogging sure does not pay…). 

The reason I have kept from posting a new post for such a long time is because for the longest time all I could think of was how frustrating it was waking up every day to go to the office and go back home having done nothing but convince myself that I needed it, I needed the experience, the pay. For that, a part of my soul died…every day.

As I write this post, I am all by myself in a huge hall full of empty seats. The cold evening Limuru breeze keeps reminding me that I need to get my sweater and the voices outside make me warm inside. These are the voices of joy, freedom, naivety, potential, discovery, innocence, the future, kids. Yes kids. Somewhere several kilometres from the city I write this post having done the most fulfilling task this year, giving stories to kids, and not just any ‘did you hear about’ story, a purposeful story, an educative story, an entertaining story, a life changing story. What more would a writer want? What more would a person who values his beliefs want? This is the story I gave these kids. Pay attention for it has a lesson to it:

In the mean streets of Jamaica, where I come from (hyperbole helps), lived this chap named Hussein Bolt. Hussein was your average guy. He was educated, hardworking, talented, handsome and well built. He loved watching sports, reading books, listening to music and had a crazy love for fishing.

Not only did he love fishing, he also had a love for hip hop, the rhymes, the beats, the game. He could spit more rhymes than Nas and Pac held up in a bind.

The only problem was like you and me, Hussein wasn’t sure of himself and so he sort affirmation elsewhere.

One day while having lunch,

Hussein saw his cousin Usain Bolt on the 1 pm news.

Apparently Usain was now this big athletics hot shot. Hussein was crushed. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not that he was jealous, he just couldn’t understand how someone who they’d grown up with, who envied how he rapped was now a world acclaimed superstar. He was vexed. At that moment everything he loved, everything he was good at and everything he believed in didn’t matter.

He had to outdo his cousin and so he sort professional advice.

He tried hard to do what his cousin had done, running every day, going to the gym, dieting, all those things his little buddy had told him. 

A few days later it worked.

Of course it didn’t! he was frustrated, he went home feeling like a larger pile of pooh than he ever was.

He went home having learnt one thing, he couldn’t be his cousin; then who was he?

A few days later while having lunch, he had an epiphany. He saw two giant scrolls appear in the…nah, he just took two sheets of paper, on one he wrote his strengths and on the other his weaknesses. He discovered he could do things that no one, not even Usain could do. He had his life line, his passion, his art.

He worked hard, stopped listening to the little voices with huge loads of crock and focus on his art. Soon he was doing tours,

making it on the news and soon, like his cousin, he had made his metamorphosis into a superstar.

I told some class 6 kids, 39 to be exact, this story and they looked at me bewildered at this kinky haired dude telling them a silly story with an even sillier slideshow. The beauty is they got it. Every part of this narrative entered their tiny skulls and made cosy somewhere in their heads, somewhere where it mattered. My only worry is for most of them this won’t make sense by next Wednesday. The up side, you won’t. You in your dead end job reading this, you doing things you do not believe in for whatever reason (money makes it second on the list under fear). Why? Because deep down, you know what makes you happy, you know what makes you tick, what gives meaning to your life…and it sure as heck isn’t that boss who always gives you reasons to staple things on your eyeballs or the people who keep telling you why doing this or that won’t work for you.

For now, this is my job; to tell stories; stories that educate, stories that entertain, stories that tell the truth, stories I believe in and sure as heck stories that make you come back for more every time. 

BONUS

No offense..., but then again, bah!

How The French Ruined My Christmas (A Burundi Experience)

When I was younger we used to play a certain game that would require us to muster some skill in grammar or face the humiliation of being laughed at by a bunch annoying know-it-alls that would have gladly been recruited by Hitler in his grammar Nazi army. The choice of words you made would determine whether you would be the coolest kid that day or well… the dumbest. So the game would require us to stand in a circle, then think of an adjective that has the first letter as your name. So there’d be all sorts of cool adjectives like Danger Dave, Atomic Adam even Elegant Esther. My turn would come and I’d say Rey Misterio Ras. Then everyone in the group would pause with blank face except for Humorous H who I think the only humorous thing about him was his name Hanningtone. “You know, Rey Misterio from wrestling…?” I would say, my dignity coiling up in a bunch as everyone burst out in laughter; including Hanningtone.

It was then that I decided to change strategy. They already thought I was dumb and my love for wrestling did nothing to add to my ‘street rep’ so every time it would be my turn I’d say, “Amazing Mengesha!” and with confidence. Everyone would look at me, including Hanningtone and I’d say, “The A is silent….” Even Hanningtone was impressed.

Having said that, I spent last Christmas in the lovely tiny country that is Burundi…and yes it is tiny…okay in a cute at least-we-have-a-chance-to-all-know-each-other way.

 My departure date was a day after the Kampala Coach bombing and I have this philosophy that I feel the need to share with you… If it rains, stay at home. If your annoying friend who talks to you incessantly and keeps slapping your back as punctuation to all his sentences invites you for a date, stay at home, if you are sick, stay at home; if a bomb explodes somewhere remotely close to where you are, stay at home…or very very very far away (from the bomb, not home)! This time I however had to break protocol and go down to the explosion site…I used ‘I’ and ‘Explosion site’ in one sentence… L God save us….

The journey would take two days, with a stopover in Kampala for dinner (at 3 AM!!!). We would leave Kenya; go through Uganda, through Rwanda and finally Bujumbura the lovely capital city of Burundi.

The trip wasn’t as smooth as it looks. Bus companies should not allow people to travel with some things. These include: Small radios, Extremely spicy food (so spicy you can tell what it is by smell), annoyingly loud children, people who put their legs over the front headrest and end up tickling your ears with their disgusting feet and drivers who do not understand the biology of liquids and the human anatomy.

Many hours later and we were in Bujumbura. For a moment I thought I was in Mombasa; palm trees (in some parts), humidity, warm nights, polite people, and beautiful ehh… people … if you love Mombasa, then you will definitely love Bujumbura. Now we are even Burundi. My host was this cool Dj (name withheld because I only know how to pronounce it and that was hard enough) so we’ll call Him Dj. E. He was a cool guy. Flat screen television mounted on his wall, cool box seats only a bachelor would have, a mini fridge for those special nights and the mayonnaise, a 6 by 6 bed…he had goals.



Dj E is too cool to be drawn so I put a picture of Freaknik instead



Bujumbura is a great city to walk around. It’s like Nairobi without the tall buildings. Everything else is just like Nairobi they even have their own Muthurwa (open door market in Nairobi – for y’all reading this in Cyprus and Greece). I spent most of the time in town buying things and roaming idly and then I got arrested. Yes I got arrested…okay I accompanied an officer to the police station because I had broken a law…by definition I was arrested.

Policeman: (Random Kirundi)

Me: I don’t understand you…

Policeman: (Random French)

Me: I am Kenyan…Mimi ni Mkenya. (I am a Kenyan)

Policeman: Unaongea Kiswahili? (Do you speak Swahili?)

Me: Ndio (Yes)

Policeman: Wewe ni musoja…? (Are you a soldier?)

Me: Huh?

Policeman: Wewe ni musoja? (Are you a soldier?)

Me: Hapana. (No)

Policeman: Kwanini umevaa kofia ya musoja? (Why are you wearing a soldier’s hat?)

It was then that I realized I had my army camouflage hat on. I tried pleading with him to let me keep it but apparently it is against the law to have anything army if you are civilian. In my defense the material on the hat was only enough to make an army bandana… not a rebel uniform! So they took it…and that was that.

I told Dj. E my ordeal and he said a lot of things in French-Kirundi influenced Swahili loosely translated to, “Don’t worry dude…be coooool them popos be jumping homies all over town….” Of course Dj. E won’t see the joke in that because that is not what he said, but hey, that’s what I heard.

So Christmas came… and for some reason I thought it had left without me. Everyone was happy, kids were dressed up, churches were testing their new sound equipment but not even one person, not even on T.V. said Merry Christmas. I was confused and you cannot blame me. So Dj. E comes looks excited and says to me “Joyauex Noel!” and am like “What?” then he musters all the English he can and says, “Joyous Noel!” and am like, “Oh! I didn’t know your name was Noel, I know that game but it looks like you are not that good at it. So I proudly state, “Amazing Mengesha, the A is silent.” He looks at me blankly, smiles and walks away.

Later am in church and the locals find out am a Kenyan and are all over me (Am sure Dj. E wouldn’t call that snitching…nkt!). This guy walks up to me and says Noeri Nziza! and am like oh Dj. E your namesake. “Ras Mengesha” I say as I give him my hand and ignore the weird look on his face. Another one come and is like “Joyous Noel” and I reply “Amazing Mengesha, the A is silent.” It doesn’t take long before I notice that almost everyone is introducing themselves as Joyous Noel. So either that game we used to play is the in thing in Burundi or something is terribly wrong. A few more people introduce themselves as Noeri Nziza and I finally ask Dj. E how comes so many people are called that. He drops his cool, laughs at me so hard that for a moment I see Hanningtone standing there pointing his index finger at me laughing away.

Moments later he tells me, still laughing, Joyaux Noel is Merry Christmas in French and it is also said Joyous Noel; and as if that wasn’t enough, Noeri Nziza is Merry Christmas in Kirundi! No wonder everyone has been looking at me weirdly! But I don’t blame the fine people of Burundi for my humiliation. It is not their fault that a fine phrase like Merry Christmas doesn’t exist…imagine Santy (that’s what I call Santa Clause) Yelling, “Joyous Noel, Joyous Noel” Imagine how many joy-filled Noels would be like, Yes Santa?! Wassup!!! It’s all your fault France!

BONUS
I really enjoyed writing this post beacause of the many memories that (cliche alert) came flooding my way. It was however a lot of fun filtering them all to come up with a string that would form this story, that I really hope is well written...if not, feel free to book a Kampala Coach bus (on a bomb free day) go down to Bujumbura and see if anything as awesome as this will happen...okay I am going on and on about nothing.

A Mengesha's Colors first: Special shout out to Janet Nyongesa, Rose Odima, Natalie Abondo, Julian Kamau, Sue Abby Neondo, Mercy She, Christine Wanjuhi, Charlo Chiri (thanks for balancing the equation)and the chick who I have honestly forgotten her name and my Burundi family Dj. E, Herve (pronounced something like eghhhve), Claudine, Cynthia, Ninette, Ella, Christoph, Onella, Phinnie, Joel, Dirck and the whole of Hope Ministries.

I know you'll be reading this, so there....

BONUS II
I really had fun in my head drawing this...

Kenya 28 Feb (Form the Patriotic Horse's Mouth)

It is quarter to 1 and I still haven’t come up with an escape plan. I’ve been looking at the clock since noon and for some reason the clock seems to be literally in a hurry. There is no way I am going to miss out on this. I have pictured it for over a month and finally the day has come – February 28^th the day Kenyans unite to sing the national anthem.

I still do not see how my boss will let me go to town just to sing, and singing all by myself, as patriotic as it sounds, seems wanting in glamour and flare and being a sucker for both, I have to be where the action is, Kencom. So I decide to take an early lunch; I will deal with the boss later. Just as I get to the door he pokes his head out of the office and hands me a package to deliver. My destination, the K.I.C.C.

with a deserved detour through Kencom. I literally run all the way from Lusaka Road, Industrial Area to Kencom. Not even the stupid Pro box driver who pulls over unceremoniously almost running me into a ditch can stop me. I give him the eyes and keep running; across the Kenya railways foot-bridge, through the Kenya Polytechnic fly over then I walk between the Times Tower and Central Bank of Kenya (I do not think it’s a good idea to run in some parts of the city…no matter how late you are). I get to Kencom at 1.05 p.m. and my heart breaks.

I missed it (at least I thought so) there is nobody singing no fists raised, no tears shed. For a moment I am tempted to raise my fist and sing; there is no way I’m going back to the office with this overwhelming feeling of emptiness. Today was all about this one moment, when I would join random people and friends and sing the national anthem, at least the first verse – I would lip-sync the other two verses but still, I would have accomplished my goal. Not being one to give up easily I make my way to the crowd and find some fearless Kenyans singing some zilizopendwa patriotic songs, not even my lip-syncing can help me. I then decide to take photos at least to get a few memories.

Just as my phone was raised taking (very low flying) bird’s eye view photos of the crowd, it started. It got me off my guard and for a moment I thought the music was in my head. “Oh God of all creation, bless this our land and nation…” I had made it. I was singing the National Anthem with random people in the middle of the city, fists raised and all. I sailed through the first verse, mumbled the second and third then did it all again in Swahili.

I must admit I was a bit skeptical as to the effect of this little act of patriotism. It wasn’t much, didn’t cost me much (okay apart from the fact that I ran all the way across the city) but at that moment when I looked around to find the dreadlocked dude standing next to me singing with all his heart and the dude holding the ‘Bunge la Wananchi’ (People’s Parliament) banner who didn’t know the words of the third verse but did a stellar job moving his lips accordingly, it finally came to me…this was it. This was Kenya; an amalgamation of diversity, culture, intellect, physical appearance, (and in this case) voices. We were one. We might have been one 5 minutes before but the realization that came at that moment brought it out so clearly, we are one.

As I took photos of random people and some not so random (I still insist stalker tendencies do not make one a stalker…okay that is debatable)

 I thanked God for that moment, for the old man asking me for a match while still holding his flameless torch as if holding on to his nationality,

 for David Mckenzie and all repoters who hopefully will let the world see this simple act of nationalism, as well as all the cameras, eyes, ears, voices and souls that made it possible for Kenya 28^th Feb to happen. God bless Kenya.

Still I cannot stop asking myself, how will we manage to unite the classes? For while I stood at Kencom singing and praying for my country, people in South B’s Fuata Nyayo slum were looking on in horror as a fire destroyed everything they heard including their hopes for a better Kenya and a better tomorrow.  

BONUS (Just Cause I love Kenya So Much...)
Due to popular demand (we'll call it pressure), I drew an illustration for this post in as much as I didn't intend to. This is for anyone who didn't get a chance to sing or just didn't see the need to. This is how patriotic you would have looked....

Finally Got A Job (and with Lil Wayne)

I finally got a job…okay I finally got an office job and for those who know me, you know office air to me is like garlic bread to a vampire.

For those who do not know me, click here to find out my stand on organizations. I am risking a lot by writing this post in case my boss reads it and goes something like “OMG!!! I hired a psycho!!!” Then he’d call me to the office and I’d be like, “Hi sir, you called?” “So Ras…? ” “Ah, sir?” “You think you are very funny don’t you?” “Sir?” “You think it is hilarious to call your boss a vampire?!” “I think vampires are funny sir. The accent and the hickies...” Of course I’d be standing near the door just in case he turns into a vampire or he fires me; the former is more likely to happen.

Don’t get me wrong I have nothing against my boss and definitely nothing against vampires except for the part where they would be capable of sucking the life out of me and eating me alive as I scream in horror coz…you know, torn limbs aren’t fun. The thing that gets to me is the fact that I think I might be in the same building as a vampire boss. Okay most of you are new to this so I will educate you: a vampire is basically a dead body that comes to life, but is still dead and has no other desire than to turn you into a juice box or at least bite you and turn you into a vampire. A vampire boss is like the commander of vampire armies and is usually either an extremely old and ugly naked man or an extremely hot chick who eventually turns into an ugly-as-heck monster bent on well, killing you. If a vampire boss were to have a baby with a human, the baby would grow to be a black man with a shady early 90s hair cut who carries a sword, unnecessary amount of guns and kicks major vampire butt which explodes into a glittery haze of fireworks and smoke - and of course the blood curling screams (I hope that's the right curling [break] oh, its blood curdling scream...thank you google). You are welcome Wesley Snipes.

Of course I'd rather a vampire boss and his army than their evil compadres... the Zombies [insert horror sound effect] (I really should start a video blog...) my encounter with a zombie army here)

Having said that, that here being a load of totally life saving information on vampires, this month has been all about building the nation and all that crap. Gasp! he said crap...yes I did; this is why. Being the patriot I am, there is nothing I'd rather see than this lovely country of mine rising to a world domination status; and for that to happen, we have to work. This means that for some time, my dream of living on an unlimited supply of internet and crisps had to be paused and I had to [pause for effect] get a job [THE HORROR!!!!] While I have no problem getting a job (...at NASA), the waking up early would definitely be a problem and so to make sure I it was easier for me, I made sure I would put on every light in the house, play the music at an unnecessarily high volume, bang doors, then start saying a speech on the importance of getting up early to build the nation, all in an attempt to make my house mate feel guilty for sleeping on the nation instead of building it! 

So after a frustrated ritual involving water and clothing, I head out to work and confirm what people always say and I had never had the chance to experience this - urban legend ... IT IS COLD IN THE MORNING! Don't judge me, my mornings used to start at 15 minutes to noon. That's where the term 'Good Morning' came from, otherwise it's just a morning, cold morning or a blank serial killer face that shows the world that you really do not need any crap this early in the day. So after beating the traffic, which in itself is a totally phenomenal experience, I finally get to the office.

Day one is not all that bad, at least I have some space to work, think and well, at least I can see the sky…literally; there is a window in front of me. Two problems: first, I hate Lil Wayne. Yesterday, I did not care for his music but the first day in the office and all my colleague has been playing the whole morning is his music now I want to talk in retarded slow speech, opening my mouth all funny so that people can see the bleeth (that’s what I call bling on teeth…sounds dumb right? So does bling on teeth).

No offence, I just think you have a problem if Lil Wayne is your favorite artist. Oh look Nicki Minaj and Drake are up next… “Just a moment, I’m almost done with Mr. Wayne.”

Come to think of it, Lil Wayne’s slurry, groan-like voice, his not so appealing looks and the way he tilts his head from side to side as he ‘raps’, wait…I was talking about zombies right? no? oh vampires and this job....  So waking up early, beating traffic that I insist someone needs to make a movie on, I subtly blend into the next problem, I have to be in the office by 7 am everyday. Did I say that right? Okay, I’ll say it again… I HAVE TO BE IN THE OFFICE AT FOLOFOLLING 7!!!! Well what do you know, I invented a word and spell check didn’t correct me: folofolling: (adj) a word to describe a situation or feeling that you can’t quite explain and since you do not want to use offensive vulgar words, folofolling makes perfect sense e.g. I was folofolling scared when my cat said hallo, instead of the usual miaow!) You are welcome.

Okay the second, third and fourth time spell check made a part of me die by drawing the red wavy line of grammatical doom under my new favorite word…I must admit it’s folofolling annoying! Folofol! They did it again!

I get carried away…my apologies.

So a new job and new experiences, I still think my boss is a vampire…I don’t know why but I do; may be it's the big dark extremely carpeted office that reminds me of...a giant (for discretion puposes i will say) box that is placed in the sand in times of great sadness. Lil Wayne… SHUT UP OR I’LL MAKE YOU! My colleague just noticed I’m staring at his desk”

Me: so, you really like Lil Wayne…

Him: Ya, he’s cool…

Me: he’s dumb and you listen to dumb music…

Him: what?

Me: I said, damn that’s some good damn music…

Him: I know right?

Me: shut the folofol up! 

BONUS (For making you wait this long and just because I love you guys...)

The reason why I did not post this blog earlier was because the internet provider I use (due to legal reasons we shall call them 'YOU' not you as in you the person but YOU, yes that YOU) is slower than a snail drawn cart or our judicial process...whichever comes first (pun definately intended). So numerous attempts to post the blog were thwarted by a still progress bar that never moved until I was politely informed that my session had been timed out. So in the spirit of timing out things, I took some time out and made this lovely ad for YOU and you.