Dennis Asiimwe
Disclaimer: I was in the middle of a long note, and kept getting side-tracked. It was probably going to be the longest thing I had written so far, and needed just the right amount of punch, but I felt just I wasn’t getting it right. I decided to distract myself by pulling off a first: grabbing a dirty joke I heard in a pub ( a girl told it to me, would you believe ), giving it my own spin, and trotting it out as a note of sorts. It sort of worked, I think…
Please note: Any similarity in names, with real persons, dead, alive or insane, is totally coincidental…honest.
One happy New Year’s Eve, Sylvia Owori decided to throw a party at her man-friend’s plush residence in Munyonyo. Amongst the guests were former model Eva-the Fishnet Dress-Mbabazi and Straka-I am Large Like That-Baby. They all had a roaring good time and got raving drunk.
Straka passed out at about 3 am in the morning after one chicken leg too many, and as Sylvia saw off her guests, Eva came to her with an urgent problem.
‘Babe, I need to get back and that limo driver is not picking up his calls. Could you drop me off? Rufus (her fiancé) will be mad if I don’t get home tonight.’
Sylvia looked around. All the guests had left, and the last person in house, apart from she and Eva, was Straka, who was snoring loudly like a freight train in the sofa next to a pile of chicken bones and a jar of mayo.
‘Well, she’s not going anywhere, and we certainly can’t try to lift her to the car’, Sylvia said, gesturing at the human acre passed out on her sofa.
‘I will drop you off, let me just lock up and set the alarm’.
Soon, the two friends were tooling along in Sylvia’s man-friend’s S-Class, with the windows down, and the wind blowing in their hair as the sounds of Beyoncé’s Single Ladies rang out from the car’s powerful Bosh loudspeakers. Just as they turned up the last junction to the main road, the car screeched to a halt as the headlamps showed three masked, armed men manning a road-block and glaring menacingly at the girls. (Please don’t ask how they were able to glare with masks on; life is already hard enough).
There was no other car on the road and in the dead still of the night, the boots of the lead thug as he strode purposefully to Sylvia’s side of the car sounded like approaching grating doom on the gravel.
‘Get out’, he rasped. The other two men stood silently, like shadows, automatic rifles silhouetted by the car’s lights.
The gunman who had spoken was pointing his gun at the girls who were seated like frozen rabbits in the car.
‘NOW!’
They leapt out of the car nimbly, sober, with all thoughts of Beyonce and rings far behind them.
‘We are not going to hurt you’, said the gunman, who had now stepped back from the car. ‘Sylvia, give me that beautiful ruby-studded Cartier watch your fiancé bought you for Valentines Day’.
Stunned that he knew about it, Sylvia stammered, ‘I left it back home, I was just dropping my friend here and…’
‘SILENCE!’, the man bellowed, and she shut up at once. He could see that her arm was bare, the pale indentation on her skin showing where the watch would otherwise have been.
He turned to Eva.
‘Eva, the diamond necklace from Bond street. You got it as a birthday present. Move it, I haven’t got all night!’
Poor Eva looked even more frightened than Sylvia. ‘I left it at Sylvia’s house because I was drunk. Please…’
‘Shut up!’ the thug bellowed. A practical man, you could see he was thinking rapidly.
He turned to his silent companions.
‘Let’s just take the car; don’t bother with their phones or wallets’.
Quickly, the other two got into the car and the lead thug slid into the driver’s seat. The two girls watched as the S-Class started and drove off into the night, its sound fading with the smooth grace of a German engine.
Despondent, the girls turned to walk back to the house, unwilling to risk any further dangers from the night.
After a few minutes, Eva turned to Sylvia and said ‘I am sure I saw you with that $40,000 watch when we were leaving your house. Where did you put it?’
Sylvia smiled coyly at her friend and said ‘Well, I hid it ‘’down there’’ ‘.
They continued in silence, and then Sylvia turned to Eva. ‘I am certain I saw you wearing that amazing necklace, the one with the priceless diamond encrusted in it. I was admiring it as you got into the car. Where is it?’
Eva smiled and winked. ‘I too hid it ‘’down there’’ ‘.
The two friends continued walking in companionable silence for a while, before a thought crossed Sylvia’s mind.
‘Too bad Straka was not with us’, she said.’ We could have hidden the Mercedes’.
As they trudged along the road back to the house, the vivid imagery that Sylvia had called up brought wide grins to their faces, making the long walk seem just a little easier.
