Tales that drunk men tell

Someone should sue beer-makers for the great, but false, expectations they help to plant in the minds of the poor wives whose husbands love their beer.

A month or so ago, a friend’s husband called her from a pub at around 11 p.m. on a Friday. Sounding excited, he exclaimed: “Sweetie, I have won one million bob from Tetemesha Na Safaricom … for sure, our problems are over!”

The man sounded quite sober, I mean, that long sentence sounds grammatically correct, doesn’t it? Even more convincing, at no point did the instant millionaire slur.

My friend could hardly contain her excitement, and implored her husband to walk out of the pub immediately so that they could plan how to use the money.

He promised her that he would do exactly that after taking one more congratulatory beer.

TOO INTOXICATED

Unable to return to sleep, my friend decided to watch a movie as she waited for her husband to return home – but she did not concentrate on it, since mentally she was busy painting the house they had moved into two years ago, furnishing it, and finally buying a new fridge, since the old one had been acting up for a while.

By 2 a.m., her husband was still a no-show, and his phone was off. Eventually, she went back to bed a disappointed woman, but consoled herself that they would have this important discussion the next morning.

Her husband returned at 4 a.m., of course too intoxicated to have any meaningful conversation.

When he eventually came off his drunken stupor at noon, he looked at his wife as if she had lost her mind when she asked about the one million shillings he had won.

“What are you talking about? Ati I won how much? You must have been dreaming … I don’t even participate in those competitions,” he announced, insisting that he had not even called her.

FANTASY STORY
I can just imagine the deflated look on my friend’s face at that moment. And to think of all the fabulous plans she had made. She wasn’t laughing then, but nowadays when she retells the story, she manages to see the funny side of it.

This is just one fantasy story told by a man to his wife after taking one too many. I wonder how many more have been told.

I was told of another that had me shaking my head in disbelief, though this one does not involve husband and wife.

The main characters are two men, who are fond of a certain pub located at the Karen Shopping Centre in Nairobi, and which is frequented by white people.

BUSINESS VENTURE

Anyway, while having a polite drink, they got talking with a white man who informed them that he was looking for a piece of land to buy in the outskirts of Nairobi.

One of the men informed him that he had a couple of acres in Kericho, which he had been considering selling.

It turned out that the foreigner had been down to those sides a couple of times, and would not mind getting himself a piece of Kenyan soil there.

The two exchanged numbers, and agreed to meet the next day, when they would take a drive to Kericho to view the land. As a sign of good faith, the seller gave the prospective buyer his “associate’s” number (his drinking buddy) just in case he was unable to reach him.

You must be wondering how factual this story is. Well, the land exists, but it belongs to the “seller’s” father, and is not the son’s to sell. If anything, his father has no intention of selling any of it.

True to his word, the white man called the following day, but neither the “seller” nor the “associate” picked his calls. In fact, he called many times afterwards, but eventually stopped after probably realising that he had been fed hot air.

Oh, the tall tales that beer makes men tell!