Feb the 14th....

Lemme join the bandwagon and say something about the day of the red stuff!...It is Feb 14th, and just like October 31st, just another day on the calendar for me. It is interesting that about 15 or so years ago, there was never such great furore(thought I'd be a bit fancy there also) about this non-gazetted 'holiday'. The office today was busy with activity as flowers kept coming in and dispersed to some lucky lass. The office bought these humongous 5 kg cakes for the folks and gave the women folk a full breakfast, more cake and a new 'club-house' for them...all this time my Ghanaian boss swung all the ladies on my floor those Ghanaian chocolates, all this time we, the men folk just stared in amusement and with a sense of injustice...anyway, had my share of stuffing myself silly with cake (white forest is the bomb!).

Back to the day. I know a few friends of mine who dread the day like it was an Ebola outbreak. one was so elated he was off to some foreign country some days before, therefore having an excuse not to do anything that day...."Mkisii kama mimi!"...well I know he would say that when "she" is not around to amuse the boys and appear tough. In campus, the red signified another ritual, which we aptly called "kumwaga damu!". I have only paid for one valentine's day, and it was not amusing.

There I was in my room in Hall 3, busy doing my assignments as I watched my roomy shuttle in and out preparing an elaborate valentines experience for his better half. After half a dozen showers and a run around campus laying some treasure-hunt clues, he was set. Now me having no better half to run around for, and being entertained by my roomy all this while was content nto to go through all this stress. then one of my other boys came around, let's call him Simo to put things into context. Now Simo had vowed he was not going to "mwaga damu" this time round, but my roomy's chick lived in the same room with Simo's chick. So when the first flowers rolled in for my roomy's chick, the obvious reaction from Simo's chick was to ask.."what about me?....Simo must be preparing something grand for me..a surprise!" Now is where the troubles started. Simo was broke, and he did not want to disappoint his chick, so he came to yours truly....did I say I funded one valz in my life prior to today?...well I was funding Simo, and he promised to pay back the advance...now six hundred bob at that time in campo was a substantial amount, and am still awaiting Simo to pay me.

Anyway Simo tries to put his act together, buys those inflatedly priced rose flowers, which was dessicated from the Feb sun by the time he was buying them..there was the AICAD dinner still waiting (now AICAD was our local 3-star place to take someone on a date in good ol Juja or for those of us not lucky enough to have anyone fancying us, ..the place to spoil yourself and kill off whatever remained of your allowance, what we called going broke in style!) AICAD was not necessarily cheap for an average campo bloke, and the day gobbled whatever remained of funds Simo and my roomy had (walimwaga damu kweli kweli!) The rest of the week we were all on bursary and beans! And I never got any benefit from the day!

Moving on swiftly, I think if I was forced to, I would go for the discounted 15th or 16th Feb valz..I know am a cheap-skate, but you get value for money, and i can't eat flowers!