Talking Point

There is a lady I know. She knows I love to read, so she promised me some books and magazines.-You can come by next week on Monday and select some old books I have been holding onto so long. Then help me put the rest in order-She said. That Monday came and went

She said she would tell me when else I could go by.

See ,she’s quiet like, not much of a talker . I am the same in crowds, and I attract quiet people. We meet regularly and we normally, as you would expect don’t have much to talk about, but at least we always have something to look forward to, a talking point. -We really need to arrange when we can do the selection-tutapanga kuzipanga, she says.

Reminds me of a favorite boss I once worked for. His trade mark phrase was-we’ll make arrangements-When there were important decisions to make he’d calmly say-we’ll make arrangements-and go on to play whichever computer game he was playing.

Sometimes the head office would call ,requiring me to take some document or cable to them; my boss would say-we’ll make arrangements-then go out to check on an irritated client, who may have called the previous day to complain, and probably been told-we’ll make arrangements for a technician to come and assist you-

We used powder milk for our office tea. If I asked for money to re-stock the office kitchen ,he’d say-we’ll make arrangements. Yeah, he even made arrangements even when it was a week after payday and our cheques were not yet signed.

That doesn’t mean he was a bad boss, noo, he was a sport. Told me many stories. When he saw an article I wrote published in a paper, he was very excited-I’ll pay you for this, this is a great effort-I didn’t see the pay. He probably realized that the article was only a start, and I was actually writing a weekly column. He would later tell me-Make arrangements to type your stories elsewhere, I don’t won’t to see ‘Warped Life’, my column, again-

I don’t remember him much now, but I remember his fingers. Long ,soft and cold. And dark. I never touched them any time, he was Islam so we never shook hands. But there’s a way you can tell just by looking. Like when he stretched his palm out like one borrowing something, they’d tremble and tend to fall backwards as if being pulled by gravity. My standard eight class teacher had the same. I observed the fingers several times when he lined my own palms for a beating.Tue 17th Oct 06