×
The Standard Group Plc is a multi-media organization with investments in media platforms spanning newspaper print operations, television, radio broadcasting, digital and online services. The Standard Group is recognized as a leading multi-media house in Kenya with a key influence in matters of national and international interest.
  • Standard Group Plc HQ Office,
  • The Standard Group Center,Mombasa Road.
  • P.O Box 30080-00100,Nairobi, Kenya.
  • Telephone number: 0203222111, 0719012111
  • Email: [email protected]

Why a jackpot winner would not spend Valentine's with wife

Counties

The man sitting next to me was one of those bulky, barrel-chested fellows who weigh 156 kilos in solid steak and have thighs the size of a tree trunk.

I did not begrudge him his good fortune in finding a wife who cooks properly.

But how I wished he could stay on his side of the seat and not spread his legs wide like he was in a busaa den.

Each time he took a breath, his belly expanded ominously like a drum, edging me further and further off my seat like a frightened step-child.

When the whole situation was becoming intolerable, however, I heard something on the radio that almost tipped me off the inch of space upon which my tiny sitting allowance had assumed the status of a squatter.

Some people called Lotto were announcing a special valentine’s lottery, the radio announced.

Nothing new there. But the shocker for me was that they were offering a fat jackpot whose lucky winner they dreamt would splash a cool Sh1 million on a mushy-mushy and kiss-kiss outing for the spouse. Really?

Surely, those people expect a Kenyan man who has won a cool Sh1 million to buy silky underwear for mama watoto, a carton of shoes, serious vitenge, complete with Orie Orogo Manduli style scarves and cap it all with a flight to the Maasai Mara on Valentine’s day?

They dream that a Kenyan woman sitting on a cool Sh1 million jackpot would waste it on that useless snoring dog of a husband with whom she shares a dusty blanket?

I have been around long enough to know that if there is one thing that can put asunder what God has put together faster than the devil himself, it is a huge amount of cash suddenly landing smack in the middle of a fractious relationship.

I have seen peasant farmers go totally crazy because they have received a small cheque of Sh37,000 from a tea or sugarcane harvest.

Shocking transformation

The week before he collects the cheque, the farmer sits down with his wife to draw plans that would put the drafters of Vision 2030 to shame.

Everything the wife suggests is received with enthusiastic nods. But when the cheque clears in the bank and the chap smells the intoxicating scent of brand new banknotes, he melts into thin air.

When he shamefacedly creeps back home smelling of Sodom and Gomorrah a week later, he is without a coin in his pocket.

The only thing he brings back to his long-suffering wife is a sexually transmitted disease and the stale, sweaty pong of a seedy lodging.

Now, if that man were to reap a Sh1 million jackpot, the gods would make him crazy. From his humble busaa den, he would relocate to the most expensive pub in town.

There, he would find music, big TV sets and barmaids who, unlike his wife, trim the hair in their armpits, have no dirt beneath their nails, wear no petticoats and have a preference for tying strings around their waists.

That is when it occurs to the villager-turned tycoon that his wife smells of firewood smoke; that her undergarments have holes, that the she only undresses in the dark and that she is not only a card carrying member of the ‘mother’s union’ but also a sworn ‘missionary’ to the core.

When the hot young thing dressed and painted like a neon sign leads him, tummy sated with fried goat meat and beer, into a room behind the bar, performs a striptease, and wails like she is dying if he as much whispers in her ear, he grunts proudly like an old, wealthy chief.

When she coos about how he is built like a bull, he starts wondering why a man of his stature is doing with that rude, fat, old hag who calls herself his wife. Reader, you know who will chew that million, don’t you?

Not that women are any different. If a wife were to come into Sh1 million via that Lotto jackpot, the last thing on her mind would be taking her husband on holiday.

She would splash the cash on nice vitenges and shoes and all the nice things the husband never bought for her and the kids.

With that complete makeover, men suddenly start noticing that inside the drab housewife lurks a beautiful woman.

Barely days later, our jackpot winner will be wondering why she has to tolerate that lazy ‘average’ fool when men of status and ambition like the local MCA and assistant chief are openly staring at her newly acquired cleavage. “I can do better,” she tells herself.

And before the man can come to terms with his ordinarily docile wife’s shocking transformation, he has been chucked to the spare bedroom of the house she built with the lottery jackpot.

Related Topics


.

Popular this week

.

Latest Articles