Social media are like an old car; lots of pleasure and a terrifying fact of life

The folks on Twitter are like my ancient Land Cruiser: an acquired taste and not for the faint-hearted.

Some men like football, others like beer, others like women, others all of them.

I like motor vehicles and I do not mind if they are old. As a matter of fact, old vehicles of a certain pedigree are very absorbing.

There are many reasons people like old cars.

The first one is that though they miss out on the technology, they are really well made.

Many of them were manufactured when engineers, not accountants, called the shots about the products going into the market.

So they are durable, reliable, and have a common sense efficiency about them.

They are also cheap. You can buy a 1990 Mercedes 126 (that is the 3,000cc S class) for as little as Sh200,000.

Another Sh200,000 will fix it, clean it up, and paint it to a delightful finish.

And you will have a tank of a car, a bit heavy, balanced, composed, massively powerful with the savage kick-down of a sports car.

The problem with old cars is that they are, well, old.

If you have a lot of money and are very passionate, you can do predictive maintenance, that is replace things before they fail.

But the average old car driver lives with the subtle dread that something old will give at the wrong time.

CLASSIC CARS
He will be attacking the African bush, possibly in a machine that gets very hot inside, his children, trying to cross their legs at the knee like daddy, toasting each other with apple juice and saying, “hit me up” (apparently like daddy), all dressed up in “jungle clothes” (dungarees and Woolworths straw hats) and fighting a losing battle with boredom and the crushing onrush of sleep.

So the man will be driving along with the calm air of Ernest Hemingway lounging in a tent.

But his body will be knotted with alertness.

Every now and then he will crack open his window to listen to that old differential, wondering if he lost the rear one, could he drive on the front one by engaging the four wheel?

And his nose will be twitching like a rat’s, looking for the smell of diesel, which would mean that the leak in his primer pump was getting worse.

For the women in the house (some of them male), the primer is the device that sucks fuel from the tank and supplies it to the engine.

If there is air in the fuel system, such as when a car runs out of fuel, diesel engines have to be primed, that is pumped by hand.

Sometimes you have to suck the fuel into the pump with your mouth, which is inadvisable for mama’s pretty boys and city wimps.

However, I can confirm that a head that has been hardened by whisky over the years is unaffected by diesel.

If you have a leak in your pump, then your car, if you stop to take pictures, will not start.

You will prime and prime and prime, and suck copious amounts of diesel, but your junk will not start.

You will drain your battery and the hyenas will laugh and roll in the dust, knowing that dinner is sweating itself into a reasonable state of doneness.

MISPLACED CRITICISM

Jeremy Clarkson says owners of classic cars are the folks you see on the layby trying to mat fan belts from pubic hair.

It may not be the most accurate of descriptions, but it does suggest that a little bit of DIY comes in handy and that the whole business is characterised by lots of pleasure and the ever present risk of serious pain.

And there is no better description of my social media experience.

Never in my life have I been excoriated with such gusto; never have I been misjudged with such passionate and vehement finality by folks who have no clue who, or what, I am.

Members of the Kenyan social media crowd are at their best when they swarm like ants, biting their unfortunate victim.

I get offended sometimes, but not for very long, when folks are mean, wrong, ill-tempered, sometimes unjustified in their conclusions, but I cannot complain.

How can I? I am of the sword. How else shall I die?

Like old cars, social media and its visceral warriors, are in equal measure a pleasurable and a terrifying fact of life.

[email protected]. Twitter: @mutuma_mathiu