WHEN this year started, I refused to make any resolutions, because as I told you before, for me these resolutions are a pure waste of time.
But although I decided that I will not make any more useless resolutions this year, in my heart I made a tiny resolution of trying to stay away from trouble as much as possible.
But I also remember telling you that although most of the times I try so hard to veer away from trouble, I sometimes believe that trouble has a nose sharp enough to smell me out.
My silent resolution of staying away from trouble was broken last week when out of the blues my mother in law appeared on our doorstep at that time when serious citizens are asleep.
That old battle-axe banged on the gate at 2am in the morning, waking most of my neighbours in the process and setting off all the dogs in my neighbourhood who started to howl like broken records.
I wondered how my wife could withhold such information concerning the arrival of her mother, but she vehemently denied any knowledge of the arrival of that woman from the hilly sides of Mbeya.
She glared at me when I opened the gate and found her standing outside next to a bodaboda fellow who looked harassed and ready to take off as soon as he received his payment, and beside the bodaboda there was a very old and ugly suitcase.
She did not have the courtesy of requesting me to pay the bodaboda fellow, she practically demanded that I should pay the fellow before she pushed past me and headed inside the house.
My dear people, I always tell you about the suffering I go through in the hands of mama Boyi, how she can wield a greasy frying pan with pinpoint precision and land it squarely on my bald head, and how she is an expert in hand to hand combat, but I can tell you now although I fear for my life….. her mother is worse.
My wife’s favourite weapon as I have told you time and time again is the greasy frying pan, which I believe is responsible for the disappearance of the few hairs that were remaining on my head, on the other side her mother’s weapon is a wooden ladle.
For those of you who have no idea what a ladle is, you should know that it is a long wooden spoon which is mostly used to stir soup in the kitchen, if it has another job then I don’t have the slightest idea what it is. As I stared at her, I could see the wooded ladle resting comfortably in her massive armpit.
From what I know, my father in law has been a regular victim of the wooden ladle, just like the way I have been a regular victim of the greasy frying pan, and he once told me in confidence that he was subjected to the pain of the wooden ladle the first year of their marriage.
I found the woman in the living room where she had switched on all the lights and was busy trying to switch on the TV, and when she saw me she told me that I should wake her grandchildren because she wants to greet them.
I flatly refused, and she appeared as if she was about to engage the wooden ladle on my head but she changed her mind.
To cut a long story short, that old battle axe told us that she has decided to leave her husband of 60 years, who happens to be my father in law, because she discovered that the fellow has a 20-year-old girlfriend.
Looking at her at that particular time, I thought to myself that if I was in the shoes of my father in law, I would have done more than taking a 20-year-old girl as my side chick.
I told my wife that she should do her best to get rid of her mother in the morning before I did, but as I am writing this, that woman has not shown any signs of leaving soon.
I called her husband the next day to inform him that his wife was at my house and that he should make some arrangements to get her back, but my hope of getting rid of her dwindled when the fellow sounded like a very happy man and told me that we should just keep her.
Two days after my mother in law invaded our house, I was happily dozing off in the office after a serious hangover obtained the previous night at Zakayo’s Pub, when mama Boyi called me.
“Wewe mzee, there are two options here, you either come home right now on your own free will or I come for you, the choice is yours,” she screamed on the phone.
I tried to calm her down so that she can explain what the problem was, but it was futile, instead she told me that I should alert my ancestors that I was about to join them.
I chose option one, of surrendering myself home, because I knew the consequences of the second option were not attractive, and all the way home I tried to figure out what might have happened, and for a brief second a smile appeared at the corner of my mouth when I imagined that maybe my mother in law had kicked the bucket, but the tone of my wife on the phone wiped it away.
I did not see any sign of a funeral at my house when I approached the house, and I cannot explain why, but I felt disappointed.
I found my wife and her mother in the living room, and seated between them was a child of about one and a half years, with a huge placard hanging on his neck with the words ‘Mchukue mwanao nimechoka, kwanza anakula kama fuko!’.
My friend, how I survived the first few minutes can be termed as a miracle, because both the greasy frying pan and the wooden ladle were out, both itching for my poor bald head.
“I knew this good for nothing husband of yours was up to something when you told me that he always comes home at ungodly hours, kwanza look at that baby’s big head, yaani ni mtoto wake kabisa am telling you!” my mother in law said as mama Boyi was busy summoning all the Nyakiusa demons.
That is when I knew that my ancestors were very strong, because when the combined weapons of mother and daughter were about to rain on me, there was a knock on the door, and a young girl came in and scooped the confused baby.
“Poleni jamani, nimekosea nyumba!” she said.
