By Joseph Maina
Curse words have become the ‘Roiko Mchuzi Mix’ of conversations and cursing is the fashionable form of verbal aggression. Among the adult population, cursing is the verbal equivalent of throwing tantrums and the vice is slowly warming its way into my neighbourhood, workplace and house. We are slowly degenerating into a ‘cursing nation’. Sadly, this is one infectious disease whose cure remains unknown.
Admittedly, I too, have variously caught myself verbalising extemporised curses whenever things go wrong. For instance, I get really angry whenever an uninvited commercial break interrupts my favourite TV programme, when my favourite wrestler gets beaten to pulp in the ring and whenever I see that infamous message on an ATM screen claiming it is being ‘serviced’.
My comptroller, too, succumbs to these ‘anger attacks’ once in a while, but her reactions are a tad more sanitary. Even at her angriest, she seldom goes beyond the religiously correct shindwe or pepo mbaya.
Maggy the Mboch is another victim of ‘anger mismanagement’ and we’re looking at a girl who more or less invented curse words. She has turned the art of cursing to a science, often screaming out her mother’s name whenever milk spills on the stove or when her phone’s airtime runs out while she is midway conversation. Accidents in the kitchen provide the perfect raw material for an X-rated expletive.
Last Sunday, I was driving my family to church when some matatu overlapped us. My fellow motorists just sat back like true Kenyan ‘sufferers’ and stared helplessly, pulling their hairs in hopeless desperation. On my part, I was seething with animal rage and I eventually succumbed to an explosive urge to yell at the driver.
“Get the (expletive) out of here, you (child with no documented father),” I bawled at the matatu maniac. As you might have guessed, the matatu guy remained unmoved, so I unleashed a string of other unkind words while repeatedly honking my horn. Keep in mind that my entire family was right there.
Semi-murderous look
“This road does not belong to you!” I ranted. My comptroller was furious:
“Shhh... Wacha kutumia hiyo lugha,” she scolded, indicating the kids. Later that evening as I was relaxing in the living room while holding a staring contest with my TV, Jimmy warmed his way into the room, holding a tray of coffee and snacks. Midway, he tripped on Russell’s foot and landed on the floor with a thud. The contents of the tray flew in all directions, including his face. More out of pain than anything else, the boy went hysterical.
“What the (insert expletive here) is wrong with you!” He roared. To my astonishment, Russell responded with a capital middle finger and the argument degenerated into a full-blown cursing spree, with the lads dropping one F-bomb after another.
“Get the (insert the infamous F word here) out of here,” he bawled. To this, Russell retorted that Jimmy bore the “greatest responsibility” for the accident, further fuelling the former’s fury.
“Jimmy, you are so full of (insert the one word that keeps Nairobi Water and Sewerage Company in business).” At some point in this cursing marathon, the lads turned round and saw the semi-murderous look on my face. Jimmy was aghast and Russell looked ready to exile himself to the moon. At this, Mama Jimmy turned to me:
“Baba Jim, unaona vile umewafunza?” she accused. In my defence, I proffered that they had probably learned these words from cartoons or hip-hop ‘musicians’, but she maintained that the apple never falls far from the tree, adding that I should stop passing the buck to cartoons.
“Wewe ndiye baba yao,” she held.
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Parental impunity
At this, I took a deep, introspective self-examination. Let’s face it: I am a negative role model to my heirs. I curse like a sailor and do all that appertains to insulting, which translates to a loose form of ‘parental impunity.’
From now henceforth, I will abstain from cursing and my house will be a ‘no cursing zone’. I will seek more sanitary ways of venting out my fury, even if it will mean enrolling for anger management lessons. It’s either that or I will quit watching wrestling, switch banks and change my mode of transport to air. Since none of these options is viable, I will simply maintain silence whenever my man John Cena’s head gets twisted like a chicken in the ring or whenever I come across ten ATMs screens screaming that infamous ‘out of service’ message.
The next time a matatu comes overlapping, I might just smile back at the errant driver and wish him a good day.