The way I see it, the old proverbial saying remains true to form: ‘Give a man an inch and he will take a mile!’
Now my wife has ‘green hands’ or whatever they call this thing when people are really good with plants and flowers and to her credit, she has turned our 1/8 of an acre into a mini farm and she produces all kinds of things.
Her major problem however, remains the MONKEYS.
So dedicated she is to the task at hand, that she has refused higher paying job offers outside of home, just so that she can always be in close proximity to her precious plants and be in a position to run those long tailed scamps, when they come ah calling.
I can tell you this though without contradiction. Because of her farming skills, we pay less at the Supermarket for vegetables and seasonings and we eat stuff that we are sure are healthy and nutritious and she is always generously giving away stuff.
Kudos to her!
And so, I went home on Thursday and if home is happy, even after your worst day at the office, you look forward to going home.
I was happy when I got home and I have been working on this thing to not allow things and people to stress me unnecessarily, because I have come to realize that when you allow someone to get under your skin, they go home feeling happy; eating their food and sleeping peacefully, while you go home upset with the world; get mad with the wife and the children; don’t want to eat; can’t sleep and literally killing yourself slowly, with all of the resulting stress.
Well I newa!
So, it definitely takes a lot to get me angry.
But on Thursday I got angry—I mean real angry!
Dear reader, have you ever nurtured something and watched it grow and develop and you are looking forward to that grand day when you will benefit and then like a puff of wind, it vanishes?
Well, it is not mango season but a few mangoes somehow were still on my trees up to a few days ago and there was a particular LOCK with about five —and they were looking good.
As my wife and I watched them grow, we kept commenting how big they were and wondering if they were properly hidden from the monkeys, because they were hanging low and kind of out of view of the vagabonds, who normally went high up in the tree.
On Wednesday, we made mention about ‘picking them soon’ and I later found out that fortunately my wife picked the biggest on that same afternoon but that left four good sized mangoes on the lock.
So, when I got home Thursday, bubbling about getting through the day and getting home safely, my wife told me a story, that spoilt the rest of the day.
A family friend had passed by to PRAG. Younger readers you may not understand PRAG. That is when you go by someone else’s home to see what they can offer you.
Some people did a lot of PRAGGING for Christmas.
So, this guy had passed by and seen some star apples on our tree and passed to beg some. While he was at it, he also begged a soursop and he asked about mangoes.
My wife says she left him in the yard to collect the star apples and to give him a few mangoes that we had picked recently but when she returned (by the way, she is super observant), she realized that the lock of mangoes was missing.
She shouted at him: “You picked the mangoes from there?’
He admitted that he had and she told him that ‘Curtis will be mad at you.’
You know the man apologized for picking the mangoes but did not offer to give them back?
Well I newa!
Honestly, I was hopping mad. Somewhere down the road, I already visualized me and my wife sitting down and enjoying those mangoes, after a hard day of work….
Enough for dreams.
Now, how do you deal with a fella like that if he ever got close to your yard again?
It reminds me of that classic story which we read in Primary school, which was interestingly entitled, ‘The Honest Thief.’
I think it was a Mr. Spencer who had this wonderful looking bunch of bananas on his tree and he kept procrastinating and he always said, he would cut it soon.
One day, this big, bad, ugly looking dude, comes to the village. His name is BULLDOG.
He goes by Mr. Spencer’s gate and tells him that he is going to steal his bananas before midnight.
And so Mr. Spencer stays up all night, drinking coffee, with his gun pointed at his precious banana tree.
7pm; 8pm; 9pm; 10 pm; 11 pm….
Spencer was probably thinking that the man only had chat after all and just wasting his time.
11.30 pm; 11.45 pm…..
Mr. Spencer is thinking that he had better go to bed but he decided to hold on for the midnight hour, since he had already wasted so much time.
11.55 pm; 11.56 pm; 11.57 pm; 11.58 pm; 11.59 pm…
Mr. Spencer yawned, as he turned to look at his watch and exclaimed: ‘This man make me waste my whole night’s sleep!
12.00 Midnight. He looked back at his precious banana tree and his mouth dropped open. All he saw was the milky substance dripping from the freshly cut stem. His prized bananas were gone!
I can empathize with the man but I can’t credit my ‘thief’ in question as being HONEST. Can you?
I get the distinct impression that if my wife had not noticed that the mangoes were missing, before he left, she would have noticed that they were gone, sometime later on and probably blamed it on the monkeys or even one of our neighbours.
What a travesty!
Well, I cannot allow that to spoil my weekend. So as our dear creator God has directed, I have to forgive him but I dare say, he will be watched more closely, next time he gets near my gate!
That’s the way I see it. How do you see it?