Beware of the little things that annoy

I have this friend of mine who while discussing the challenges of marriage over a drink in a roadside pub back home, told me of the two things that his wife does that drive him up the wall.

One, he said, was how she squeezes out toothpaste from the tube. Don’t laugh because when I did, he looked at it in a manner suggesting I was taking this as a joke.

You see, he told me, he likes using Aquafresh toothpaste and his best moments in the bathroom are when he squeezes it and the paste comes out nicely; its red, blue and white stripes in the shape or pattern the manufacturer intended it to be.

Now, with the wife squeezing it anywhere between the cap and the bottom of the tube what comes out is a beaten paste, colours twisted and mixed, something he confessed to me gives him nausea and a bad start in the morning. I wanted to suggest to him to have his own tube but thought letting him go on would make him feel better.

Secondly, my friend dislikes how the toilet roll is set up in the loo. He likes the part that you tear off to be on top not bottom of the roll when you pull and tear it off.

He says this makes it easy to cut off and has some aesthetic value to him. You may disagree and argue there are more serious things to worry about in life but then don’t we all have our likes and dislikes that would send others laughing if they knew?

There are those of us who get grossly irritated by those who eat and talk, spewing pieces of whatever they are eating all over. They synchronise the two tasks as if to prove they are good at chewing gum and singing opera songs at the same time.

In a hotel in South Africa, I stumbled on a solution for my dislike for tooth-picking at the lunch or dinner table. I don’t like it but I can’t help it when my friends go for the pieces of what they ate squeezed between their teeth as if there is some piece of gold stuck therein!

In Durban, I found out that you can only be given toothpicks on your way out of the dining room! See, even the Boers as they suppressed Africans had the sense of weird irony to take tooth picking out of the eatery; they don’t like the sight of a person on the other side of the table opening the mouth as if to let you count the teeth he or she is left with, while making guttural noises.

Chinese tourists

I drifted onto the issue of the peculiar habits we have when, while on a retreat out of town this week, I saw some Chinese tourists arrive in numbers that convinced me they must have come in droves so as to impress President Uhuru and persuade him to stop ogling at the US, and specifically the face of our brother Barack Obama.

In the morning, we were shocked to see they had washed their clothes, even the little multi-colour privates and handkerchiefs on the balcony rails and flower pots.

I don’t know, but maybe it is their way of life just like I was told in their bid to cut costs, some of them were thrown out of a hotel in Naivasha because of cooking food in the rooms. And we are not talking about noodles here but real food.

Turns out they had been to the lake and so liked the fish that they later came with fishing nets and knifes. The next thing, they could not be seen in the restaurant as they were busy cooking. Inspectors found the cash bar fridge in the room stuffed with iced fish; and drinks stacked in the wardrobe.

Yes, there are habits we have that are annoying and how nice it would be if we could get rid of them.

But again we are creatures of habit, and while some will have no qualms blowing mucus to the ground as if in reminiscence of the game we boys played ‘shooting’ to see whose will hit the farthest, the same fellow will complain about those fondling, or is it re-arranging, their privates in public as if it is perpetually out of place or is a mobile appendage to the body.

I wouldn’t complain about snoring because I probably am a victim but Mama Jerop has been kind to keep to herself

But again, it seems either to be a natural or medical condition that one can do little about, or I think so. However, how would you explain to children why a grown up in a big car, which probably has a litter bin inside, throws banana or orange peelings or tissue laden with mucus through the window?

There are the extreme cases like poking fingers in the nose as if in exploration for gemstones, and going for four days on same socks and being daring enough to remove them in the office in the name of letting the feet ‘relax’!

We tell our children to eat in moderation then clear mountains of ugali and stacks of nyama choma over bottles of beer as if the world ends tomorrow, or scarcity is on the way, and you suddenly realised your tummy has a storage facility!

Think of the fathers who smoke like locomotive trains while with their children, or the mothers who hang out with their young kids in bars till late at night in the name of family day out. You would think they are out to drink till midnight!

These habits determine how we relate to each other. You see it in the way motorists mistreat and nearly kill each other on the road. In public toilets, the base animal instinct in us seems to take over, you will be forgiven for thinking the chap was in a hurry like a cow that does its thing while chasing more grass ahead.

It is the reason we leave chewing gum under restaurant tables, jump queues as if we are the only ones in a hurry, and waste office material as if to punish your employer for low-pay.

Yes, there are many of these peculiar habits that school never shattered and which we often don’t think irritate anyone but they really gall. Some are so nauseating I can’t even mention them here so as not to kill your Friday mood.

You are right, I left our dirty politicians today to have a meeting with ourselves because their thievery, cheat and greed is just an extrapolation of who many of us are only that we have not had the opportunity to exhibit.

In the end, our country will only be as good as we are, and the next person as comfortable as we make them be with a reciprocation cheque written; Good Manners.

Now as children would say, mind your manners this weekend.