One day Kenyans will stop asking, 'Do you know someone there?'

It is that time of the year when school principals go underground. When you call, their phones say, "Mteja wa nambari uliopiga hapatikani kwa sasa."

Don't bother calling again because you won't find them. But why would you blame them? These school principals are your friends. You went to school with them. But you've never once called them. You've never bought them a beer or sent them a lousy happy birthday message on Facebook.

And then one morning, when the KCPE results are out, and your lovely angelic daughter named after your mum has been dispatched to some nondescript school in the boondocks, but you would rather she goes to 'Alliance', you remember they exist.

It's not like they are merely sulking. The Form One class has only 332 desks. Yet there are 567 parents queuing with kids who have sworn to commit suicide if forced to report to that ka school they never chose.  So what do you expect the teacher to do? Set up an IDP camp in the school?

When it becomes clear that you will not get the school principal on phone, you bite the bullet and arrive in school in person. Now here is where you see real gymnastics.

The Principal, a man or woman who was at the university with you, suddenly discovers they don't know you. They walk through the waiting room without 'seeing you'. If you attempt to say hello, they grunt something vague and vanish into the office.

Six hours later, they are still locked in there for a series of never ending meetings. Should they emerge, it will be at a fast trot with the words, "I will be back shortly." Forget it my friend. Huyo mteja hatapatikana kabisa!!!

Here then is what you could do. Find someone, who knows someone, who actually knows the principal's boss, the principal himself, a senior teacher or a cook in that school.  Once you do that, bingo – your pretty girl will have an admission letter.

But this tale is not entirely accurate. The truth is that you can walk into a public office where you know no one and get assisted. The problem is that Kenyans are so accustomed to being treated like dirt and asked for bribes that they have become too traumatised to bother.

There is, however, a lesson for them from the old cop. His first rule is that when he walks into a public office, he does not wait to be offered a seat. He pulls one out and makes himself comfortable because he considers every public office to be 'his' office.

Second, he doesn't allow government officials to bully him. Three months ago, all passengers in a matatu he was riding were arrested for not wearing non-existent seat belts.

He told the officer, "Young man, I have no problem with accompanying you to the police station. Unfortunately, my legs are not what they once were. If you lift me out of this seat into your police car, I will be happy to come along."

Not surprisingly, he never bothers to ask who knows who in a government office. He merely grabs his walking stick, covers his mane of white hair in a godpapa and swaggers in like owns the place. Which in truth, he does.