Magreth Nunuhe
THE other day I overheard a conversation. Yes, call me a story-lorry if you wish but I couldn’t let this one pass. These three girls were sitting at a carwash and listing the things they couldn’t live without.
It was quite interesting the things they mentioned like not being able to live without taking a shower, putting on lipstick, mascara or their sunglasses.
Hmmm … quite hilarious how shallow we have become, ne?
Another spoke of how she could never live without her cellphone and iPad, while the other jokingly talked about how she couldn’t live without her boyfriend.
Typical girlie talk, but it wasn’t until one said, she could kama not live without two-ply toilet pampier that I almost fell off my chair.
I mean, hello in which world do you live where you can only do the nasty with some sophisticated soft tissue, which once flushed down the toilet pot joins other kak papers and excretions on the way to some sewage dump?
I almost said, “etoo, dung is just dung, vakuetu” and it doesn’t matter how you clean after it leaves your body because only you and the toilet pot shares that secret.
But since you brought it out in the open, I have to tell you that this is the pittiest thing I have ever heard in years.
Perhaps you have never had a running stomach while traveling on a bus where you almost knocked down the bus driver for not stopping as you had to run into the bush.
And once in the bush, you dared to run over snakes and all other wild creatures because you just had to relieve yourself only to realise that you didn’t bring along toilet paper.
Would you then really go back to the bus uncleaned to ask somebody to dig into your bag to find the two-ply soft paper or would you clean yourself with whatever you find in the bush, such as sticks, grass, sand or whatever nature provides?
It’s no wonder we are criticized and rightfully so for losing our humanity. We complain and prioritise things that really don’t matter while we forget that there are bigger things out there that are more important.
We spend our time and energy on the small stuff and in the process have little room for things that really matter, such as spending time with our families and making sure that they live fulfilling lives while on earth.
For example, we watch our own families die from poverty and illness while they are alive, but once they die, we are the first ones to order the most expensive coffin, pay for the most expensive funeral service and dish out money left and right just to brag about how we kama ‘care.’
Take your spouse on a trip, become a child among your kids, play with them, dance, laugh, scream. There will always be time to clean the house, wash the dishes, fix the car, paint your nails red, have a couple of 061s with chommies, but take care of the real things that you can’t live without. Toilet pampier is certainly not one of those. Sorry Ngo!
magreth@newera.com.na