It was past midnight and everyone in my house had reached that - TopicsExpress



          

It was past midnight and everyone in my house had reached that stage of sleep when snoring and dreaming become almost inevitable. My phone rung and I became really scared. Almost all the calls I have received at this time of the night have been harbingers of bad news. I said a short prayer, heaved a sigh of tension, and picked up the phone. Hello, as soon as I heard the voice, I recognised who it was. It was my senior cousin. He is the kind of person who never calls to say hi. He hardly ever answers his phone too. The only time he ever makes a call ( at least to me) is when someone in the family passes away. Hello I answered, as my heart pounded heavily against my ribs. Good evening ( does that time of the night still qualify as evening?)Please call me back. Without hesitation or any waste of time, I called back. How are you? he asked. I am fine I answered with an eagerness, an eagerness that would send him a signal to cut off the niceties and protocols and go straight to the point. But like the typical waala man, he had to finish with the traditional greetings. How is your family, I hope they are all fine? At this point I developed a strategy to respond with very short answered to express my disinterest in the greeting. Mmmh I replied. And how is Accra. I wanted to tell him to call Mayor Oko Vanderpuije for the answer but I restrained myself. Mmh I answered. And work too? Mmmh I replied again. As he continued with his greetings for at least 3 to 4 minutes. Those 4 minutes lasted as long as a couple of millennia or perhaps eternity to me as I begun to recollect the names of sick people in our large family. By this time, if tension and suspense could kill, I would have died. Then to make matters worse, that lady who works with MTN and who never gets tired of talking interrupted my cousin and whispered into my ear....you have 1 minutes remaining.... My senior cousin had not delivered his message yet. He was now in the final lap of his protocols we are also fine over here but......and the line dropped. I had ran out of call credit. With only my boxers and a worn out singlet, I walked straight out to my neigbours house , woke him and his family up to borrow a phone to call my extended family back home where it appeared there had been an emergency. My neighbour too was clearly concerned. Without the blink of an eye, he gave me his phone. I rang my senior cousin as soon as he picked up I said in a tone that told him I had no time for greetings. Why did you call? What is the matter? Is anything wrong? Oh no no no no he said. Then what is it? I asked almost getting angry at this stage. We are having a debate around issifus tea spot near the transport yard and we wanted you to clarify an issue for us. Does Gifty Anti still work at GBC? ........ then a combination of silence, anger, sigh of relief, and and laughter ( the kind of laughter not caused by a humorous event) all simultaneously engulfed me. If ever I develop hypertension, please blame it on this call.
Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 08:31:54 +0000

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