Oh! What have I done!?!

I have started to feel some pangs of remorse. The Machiavellian in me was waning, giving way to the little teddy-ruxpin-teletubby-softy-wuss-care-bear within me that is otherwise called a conscience. I know it sounds silly, and that I am completely overreacting, and that I am being ridiculous and that you will roll your eyes but I could not help asking myself what you will doubtless consider an asinine question:

Did I really have to go and have a nigga killed?

I spent the weekend trying to shake the question off, but it wouldn’t go. Every unguarded moment it was there. During the commercial breaks, it was there. When one bottle was finished and I was waiting for the next one, it was there. Every idle moment, conscience was asking, “You could have just had him transferred, or fired. You didn’t have to get a hitman to kill him.”

In the end I broke down and cried. This end happened in the middle of a burger dinner at Nandos and caused a couple of patrons to look at me and sneer at such unhygienic behaviour i.e. sobbing uncontrollably on my knees in the middle of such a classy place.

I was able to stop sobbing long enough to give each of them the finger and articulate the words “classy my ass” before I returned to my breakdown.

I fortunately able to regain my composure as I was being carted to Butabika, and convince the cops to drop me off in Nakawa (50K did the trick), where I started to think optimistically. Maybe he is not dead. Maybe he really is on leave. Maybe I am not a horrible and evil and ill-mannered person after all.

“Yeah right,” conscience said.

So I went and had another beer. Okay, another crate.

And the weeks went slowly by

With no word of Sidney. Not a peep, and, more importantly, not a poop. The air was fresh and sweet and the only aroma on the clear afternoon breezes swirling in through the windows and around the office was that of the katogo Munna the watchman was having for lunch outside.

Eventually someone was going to ask where he was. Eventually someone did.

"Whatever happened to whatsisname, the smelly farty one you were always pounding on, Ernie?" asked Colleague Name Withheld (hereinafter referred to as CNM).

I hastily replied, "Why are you looking at me? I don't know. How should I know? I didn't do anything!"

"My, what a vehement and forceful answer. If I didn't know better, I would have thought you subconciously misconstrued my question and thought I was accusing you of having him murdered! Hah hah hah!" said CNM.

"Yes, um... Yes. Hah hah hah! Hah hah indeed. That's right. Of course I haven't had him murdered, that would be ridiculous. And silly. So Hah hah."

"But still, I wonder where the malodorous social wart is," CNM insisted on pursuing the question.

That is when Superior Name Withheld joined the conversation: "I have just recieved this envelope. On examining it's contents I found the answer to the riddle of Sidney's absence. The envelope contained his leave forms. The odious stinkbug is on leave and has been so for two weeks now."

Either this is true or Black Captain's deluxe package is very very worth every penny.

Rockin' wit' da best

I was in the office listening to The Game and 50 Cent’s song “This Is How We Do” (It is not exactly sophisticated artwork, you know. These two gentlemen are in fact severely challenged. Uughn.) when my personal assistant brought in a parcel. It was from Black Captain. As promised, he had sent me his brochure. He had asked me to call him once I received it, so I got on the phone.

“Quite a range of services you have here,” I said, genuinely impressed.
“Yes, that is why my company is the industry leader. You will have noticed the various packages we offer? Which takes your fancy?”
I thought it over before I answered. “Not that I am cheap or anything, but I really do not hate Sidney, and I don’t think it makes financial sense to spend a whole lot of money having a person offed when I don’t even care that much. So I am looking at the Economy package with interest.”
Black Captain urged me to reconsider. “If you are certain you don’t want to be caught, then that is not the best option. It involves our operative merely finding the victim wherever and kigafla and hacking his head off with the nearest sharp instrument. There is a mess, blood all over the place, and, more often than not, witnesses, not to mention the curses of the dying. If you place any value on discretion, elegance, style and neatness, perhaps you should look at page 89: The Deluxe Platinum package.”
I looked at page 89, the Deluxe Platinum package. It was very pricey, but the word “discretion” was written in large red letters above the photos of the models acting out the murder.
“How discreet is this going to be exactly?” I asked Black Captain.
“So discreet, that even Sidney won’t know there was a murder until it is far too late to do anything about it.”
So I am off to my ATM.

A small digression

I hate MTN. I started hating MTN when they were monopolists and I was a zealot for the free market. Then I hated them because they were bloody advertising everywhere with giant billboards and I was a fervent environmentalist. And you know what’s it like during an airtime shortage to walk all over the damn city looking for airtime and there is none to be found the length and breadth of Kampala but every 50 feet there is a bloody MTN advert grinning at you in mockery... Grrr!

And I hate MTN t-shirts. They are not absorbent enough, and when you try to mop the floor with them you just spread the dirt around.

I hated Eric Van Veen’s accent. But Rita Okuthe is kinda cute, though.

Moving on. I have been having a pathetic little life this week, in which everything around me has been boring and dull, so when news that MTN was going to let subscribers send and receive photos on their phones, I was, and this is almost embarrassing, excited to hear it.

I’m sorry, but I was. I wanted to see phone pictures.

I wanted to see what my happening friends are up to with their camera phones.

After they forgive me for saying their cool camera phones were tacky.

But it’s been five days and I still haven’t got the sms which is supposed to activate the picture thing. You have no idea how mad this makes an egomaniac. I haven’t been this livid since that time when Linda said she would call me and I waited and waited and waited and nadda and then she shows up all blasé like “hi rrrrr-nesssst” with her little ka-stereo and I’m supposed to just roll over? Well I did roll over but the principle stands.