Why it is too hard to sell my wife Michelle

By MAFTAH YUSUF

There is a free classifieds site that Kenyans are yet to make use of fully. It goes by the fancy name of OLX . I got the idea to dump my excess baggage through the site when a drunk partner, swearing after taking one too many Mututhos, would sell his mother- in- law here.

“Kwani can’t Eric Omondi, (the brand ambassador) come and show me how to post a mom–in- law for sale. She is laying in wait for me at my house. Eric come to the rescue,” he shouted.

“Wewe boss, style up. Besides, some items like manure and witches are not for sale at the OLX,” he was told by the barman who warned that more nonsense would make him call the bouncers to toss the man out of the pub.

For me, a ‘light’ bulb went off in my mind and I knew I could turn around my ‘misfortune’ and even make a neat pile in the process. I mean, as they say, in marketing, the most important thing is packaging and advertisement.

I am going to package Michelle so attractively that Eric Omondi would want to purchase her as his own ‘private nurse’.

So, since failing to plan is planning to fail, I made a mental note of what I needed to focus on as Michelle’s strong selling points.

“Honey have you heard of the conspiracy by husbands and wives to mint money at the Coast?”

 “Refresh my mind,” she tells me. I narrate to her how husbands from Kwale send  their wives to lure men who are later busted while in compromising situations with other people’s wives and are then forced to pay a ‘fine’.

She lets out a low whistle once I am through and then calls me crazy. “You always say that I am not worth a dime and now you are planning to make a fortune out of me,” I can tell she is having a good time.

 “Besides, I am not those women you like staring at from Koinange street.” When she straddles her moral high horse like this, it gets very tricky for me.

She talks about how she was brought up in a christian family and ‘some habits and behaviours’  are beneath her. But I know how to catch her.

Digital request

“I am going to make men digitally request for your company not sell you like chips funga in Soko Mjinga.” I inform her of the plan to use OLX.

When she learns that none other than funny man Eric Omondi will come over to seal the deal on her behalf, she becomes happy.

This is one comedian that she is always dying to meet.

We start planning and we do an email to the funny man, detailing all the unique features on Michelle. By the time we are through, we have listed that she is a woman of rare beauty and a caregiver who rivals the late Mother  Theresa.

Also among her rare talents in our list is the revelation that she is a professional masseuse whose stock in trade is rejuvenating aging bodies back to their former virile self.

“And Eric is coming with his TV crew for them to record the sale so that it will be broadcast all over the country?” she wants to know; to which I answer in the affirmative. “LOLLEST! All the other women are going to be jealous when they see that I have achieved celeb status as the first girl to be auctioned through OLX and they will all want to get in on the game,” she says happily.

Run away

However, I remind her that the plan is for us to sell her so that after I get enough money she can run away. When I see the wicked smile on her face I just know it is a done deal and all I have to do is talk to Eric so that we can effect the sale.

I get him through a friend whose cousin is an in-law to his other nephew and after formal introductions, we get down to business.

“So  you are saying that your merchandise is a woman who also happens to be your wife?” he asks. When I reply yes, he and his buddies have a good laugh after which the ‘Itakuwaje’  superstar tells me that the difference between OLX and a brothel are a gaziilion.

That is when I get mad and start hurling skeletally inspired abuses and ‘mchongoano’ at  him.

“You so thin that you can introduce a straw as your twin, Shindwe!” I shout at the guy who for some reason still keeps smiling.

So now I am between the devil  and the deep blue sea. I have to go and tell Michelle that there will not be a TV filming crew over at our house.

 I am also to break the sad news that her expected one moment of fame is not going to materialise.  The woman might turn violent like her Nyeri counterparts and I don’t want to lose my teeth. So I guess I might just have to skip town.