If only money could spill our secrets

If only money could speak about the circuit it has gone round, the hands it has passed through, and the beauty and ugliness of where we have hidden it.

You see, nothing compares to coins and notes, apart from oxygen, which is also very democratic in this country. The air you breathe oozes from your nose and is probably taken in by your leaders, or if in the office, by your boss.

So in the same breath, money has its language and traits. The Sh1,000 note you leave at the till of your roadside kiosk could in the next week, given how fast our common currency circulates, be in the wallet or handbag of a chap dozing off during a top-level government meeting.

If bank notes could speak they would tell our story, the Kenyan story, alongside the madness you see in the old movie: God made man, man made money, and money made man mad. If you recall it was about a dying man giving directions to hidden treasure and a dozen of characters engaging in the most hilarious adventures and means to reach there by all means.

When eventually the money was dug out, it fell off a chopper and landed on a crowd in the street.

Yes, when you look at the money in your hands, first count your luck, because there is a someone dying because he or she isn't as lucky. Secondly, remember it may have been forcibly stolen from a chap who could have been killed by robbers in the process.

Thirdly, it could have come from a roadside corruption exchange.

The point we are trying to make is this, the coins and currency notes we work so hard for, breaking all the rules in the book in the process of trying to amass more, if only they could speak, would tell the most hilarious story about us.

First, it would be the secret of how it first came to us, through theft? Bribery? Extortion? Prostitution? Hard work? Fraud? Commissions? In other words money would tell our character.

But on the other level it would spill the beans about our habits. Let us digress a bit and go to Egypt where a garbage man was able to accurately profile his clients from the rubbish bags they deposited through the chute for him to pick at the lower ground.

He told on those who were on sexual enhancement pills and the junkies injecting themselves with illicit drugs through disposed needles and packets.

He could accurately tell you who was a secret alcoholic from the number of the bottles that fell down through the chute from their apartments. Still, he could reveal their sexual appetite and preferences by the paraphernalia and assortments that found their way to his hands at the end of the use and disposal chain.

He knew for sure who was using which toy because the retired gadget ended up in his hands together with the packet and user instructions of the new one!

Then the old letters, bills and bank communication from his clients were an eye-opener as to the ostentatious habits of the guy living large up the building.

Most of them were demands for unpaid debts or eviction warnings from the mortgage lenders! Others were demands for upkeep by a string of mistresses.

Down there the chap would know the food you ate, the kind of toilet paper you use, even the soap and cologne. By just going through your waste he would undress you bit by bit and yet all you give him is loose change.

My friend, if the money we have could whisper its secrets like the contents of the garbage did to the Egyptian, it would tell on our secret rendezvous and adventures.

More so the notes and coins would betray us on where we keep them, right from some corner in the underpants, bras, socks and even as we saw from the traffic police officer held in Nakuru, under the head-cap.

The money would have a million revelations to describe the scent and quality of your bed sheets because they are no stranger to your pillow.

Others would speak openly about the fragrance of the area around your rear pocket where the wallet rests when you are not in bed, or the companions such as sex pills, sanitary pads, lipstick and even false hair that keeps it company in the handbag.

Friends, there is one secret that money bears every time you hold it; where it has been and the footprints of its previous owners.

Some smell of baby milk after storage in the bra of lactating mothers, some bear the scent of some randy masculine being and so as not spoil your appetite, let us just say there is also money that was retrieved by previous owners from dying victims of road accidents, and bear some blood.

Still others are from the butcher man and mama mboga and bear the DNA of the stuff they handle every day. Others have gone through places that would rather remain secret so that if we have bad moments in 2015, this second day of the New Year, won't be counted among them.

So, today just listen to the silent language of the money you are holding and imagine all the places it has been, what it has seen, and the marks it bears from previous storage and handling.

Otherwise may you have a happier and more prosperous 2015 as we try to chase more money, without worrying about its secrets because money isn't about to speak.