With Alan Kay
“You seem tickled beyond expression this evening. Have you landed a good contract or got a nice babe on your watchlist?”
“Charles, none of the above. I’m intuitively excited over the unfolding events in this country, and typical of me, such an inner feeling must be openly expressed, especially at a forum like this, where men gather to drink the hell out of the liquefied, adulated containers known as beer.”
“Kay, guess you had ‘shelled’ something like two bottles before arriving here. As an experienced drunk, I know that as far as this moment is concerned, you are not a virgin drinker. You have been de-flowered.”
“Well, I hope you’ll mind your speech, otherwise, the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission which may have been eavesdropping would simply sanction you for dishing out lewd talks, same way some songs belonging to Eedris Abdulkareem were embargoed for being ‘political hate songs’.”
“I beg, don’t mind them. Why have they suddenly found their voices? Imagine, all these years, many Nigerian musicians have had albums that could effortlessly boost libido, far beyond the magic of Viagra. What did they do about those ones? They should leave those boys joor.”
“Yes, you wanted to know why I was in high spirit, upon my arrival here at Ani Baby Beer Parlour, the irresistible spot in Owo community? I will tell you Charles, my good friend; the only graduate spare-part seller turned social critic.”
“But before we proceed, let Ani, your backwardly endowed and frontally enriched mistress brighten the day with our brand, which must be, as usual, criminally cold and of mortuary standard.”
“Right…and let us also add two plates of snake meat pepper-soup, and they should be very hot, to neutralise the fog in Ani’s enchanting beer.”
“Oh! She now sells snake meat? Good. I would like to be initiated, and will never be deterred by the superstition that I would be kissing snakes in my dreams, simply because I ate snake meat.”
“Charlso, let’s not derail the session. You see, I was upbeat when I came in because of the story I heard over my car’s radio when a comic programmer recalled an incident when the then President Muhammadu Buhari, now of blessed memory, would not return to his office until all the pesky rats disturbing him there are killed by fumigation.”
“Don’t mind them; rather than for his aides to say that he would rest at home for a while having just returned after a 103-day intensive medical care in London, they instead turned themselves to comedians.”
“Interesting. I wonder why the Presidency was then reduced to a circus, to the extent that such a big lie would be told against rats, simply because those wimpy little objects have no right of reply.”
“See, you were chirpy when you came in, reflecting on the ridiculous import of the rat raid of the then President’s office. What Buhari’s men sought to achieve was simply to work on the tension that had engulfed the nation, and thus make everyone laugh.”
“Oh, I didn’t think of that. People need to laugh away their sorrow and anger. Just as I am doing. Otherwise, it is not funny coping with the high cost of consumer goods in the face of poor salary, inescapable children’s school fees, crazy house rent, and lately, embarrassing increase in the price of beer. I will, therefore, urge President Tinubu to please adopt that style, to make people laugh and thus cool off frayed nerves.”
“Alan Kay, the dream of every reasonable woman. You sound like Gani Fawehinmi’s successor in rights advocacy. But shout from morning till evening, life continues the same dreary way, with its attendant drudgery. I’m not a fatalist, but I see us oscillating on the same barber’s chair.”
“You are right. What I think they should just do is to subsidise the price of beer, to attract more consumers to the bar. Once people are drunk, they tend to forget their sorrow and this will take out of the man-hour being used to disturb the peace of the government.”
“Agreed, but how about its other implications? Such as people getting drunk to the extent of crashing their cars or to the level of riotous public romance or outright rape?”
“Never mind. Once the price of beer comes crashing down, there will be a regulatory body to control both the price and the level of intake. Anybody found to have taken more than three bottles per sitting will be tried and sentenced to a Rehab, where he would be denied beer for three months.”
“Wow. That’s suicidal. How can life be without beer for two days? And talking about a regulatory body, you should chair it, considering your immeasurable contribution to the beer parlour industry in the country, having consumed no fewer than 2.8 million bottles’ in the last 10 years.”
“Please don’t scandalise me. Where is my richly endowed and gangling Ani? These bottles are already ‘leaking’ and they need replacement. At least, with three bottles today, we would have met the maximum consumption level for my proposed beer-regulation task force.”
“And Ani should serve us fast. At least, she won’t give an excuse like, ‘please some rats have consumed the remaining bottles of beer.’ Not when all the bottles are corked!”
“I beg, Charles, leave our dearly beloved former President’s men alone. Let’s spare this our rat matter.”