YOUR favourite column has clocked two years today since its inception. We mark the second anniversary of our literary journey by publishing a select few summarised sample stories that made the column tick. The editor thanks everyone of you for your tremendous input into the column which could not have survived this long without your dedication, devotion, commitment and support through your wonderful works. We encourage you to continue writing and we would appeal to others who have not yet contributed to start doing so as we embark on the third lap of this endless journey.

THE second year kicked off with a piece titled “How my wife fired maids,” by Our Correspondent who chronicled the deeds and misdeeds of housemaids whom he said can cause undue havoc in homes.
The author narrated  how his wife turned the hiring and firing of maids almost into an art form in their home  because she mistrusted his relationship with them and she fell short of making him stand accused of putting one of them in the family way!
In life, it’s not unusual or wrong to protest injustice, poor service delivery, bad conditions of service or oppression, among others, but the nature of protest may land people in trouble, as happened to Chizongwe Secondary School students who were expelled for a gripe against poor teaching of a subject, but were lucky to escape with a reprieve, reported SIMON MWALE, in an article titled “When Protest Yields Expulsion, Good Dividends.”
We are told to eat in order to live and not otherwise, but Our Correspondent, who went to attend the Ncwala Traditional Ceremony of the Ngoni people got more than he bargained for as he appeared to forget there were other purposes for living, even temporarily.
He overate at the traditional ceremony and paid the price in mid-air when his bowels opened up on an aircraft with no  toilet!
Do you believe in miracle cures? For five solid years, LEORNARD KATONGO was afflicted by what seemed an incurable ailment-stomach pain—and resigned himself to his fate and, despite consultations with all kinds of medical doctors with their varied prescriptions, the ailment couldn’t just go away, until he met a pastor who proposed a rare remedy—mineral water!
SIMON MWALE wrote about the ordeal of travelling by public transport and recounted his 1990s trip to eastern Zambia to mourn the passing of his younger brother and asked: “Ever had one of those bus trips where nothing goes right?” And he answered that he had —on a private bus- that made him decide never to get on a private bus again!
As the year wore on Our Correspondent wrote about love triangles which are not desirable and should be discouraged at all costs, although they are very much a part of our social lives.
The author, in a piece, “How I ditched my acting wife position” recalled the saddest moment in her life when she was made to pretend to be somebody’s wife so she could help “her man” get out of trouble, but to no avail, forcing her to recant illicit relationships with men.
We all want to succeed at job interviews, don’t we? But we just can’t walk into interview rooms haphazardly and expect to impress when we haven’t done our home work, said EMMANUEL MAKUNU, who, due to ill-preparedness, made a fool of himself at a job interview. His piece was titled “How I flopped job interview.”
“The pregnancy that never was” was another of the interesting pieces by Our Correspondent who noted that the bulging physical appearance of a woman always heralds the arrival of a bundle of joy, but that there were, apparently, exceptions to this convention as the writer found out when his dear wife raised hope of good tidings only to pour ice on these hopes when an extended pregnancy turned out to be fake.
Major SYLVESTER CHOLA described how he became a visionary and lost interest in the material things of this world and argued, in a piece titled “End of the world in reality?” that only one person, like himself, can be chosen by God to fight for others against the plans of His adversary, Satan , who wants to morally and physically destroy  Africa, including Zambia, so that she fails to deliver the goods for Christ.
Our correspondent, a former Times staffer, described his dramatic escape from a news source, in a perilous encounter with the newsmaker, an influential politician one day  as he pursued a story. The politician felt he’d had enough of the pesky reporter’s intrusion in his life and chased him like a dog from his farm.
We also had a hilarious contribution from JAMES SHIMWITWA who said in life, what comes does not always beat a drum as he found out one day when a mix-up led to his innocent arrest and incarceration in a stinking police cell.
Never delay to take your child or indeed an adult to renowned hospitals when you see symptoms of disease, any disease. Delays are costly, warned WILFRED MFULA who lost his beloved daughter to a curable disease-malaria- and said her death took a part of his life and he’s no longer the same person.
“Chinese man shattered my ambition of being a scribe” spiced the pages of this paper in which James Shimitwa wrote about a mother warning her daughter to be careful with egocentric men with sugar coated tongues, craving to satisfy their voracious appetites that as long as she remained attractive, she would always be vulnerable. The author narrated how his sister wasted her ambition of a dream career as journalist due to an unplanned pregnancy.
Prolific contributor TIMOTHY KAMBILIMA, in a piece titled “my first teargas experience” described various methods police use to disperse riotous crowds, including rubber bullets, water cannons and teargas, which among others, works by irritating the eyes, nose, mouth and lungs, and causes crying, sneezing, coughing, difficulty in breathing, pain in the eyes and temporary blindness. One day, the police swooped on riotous pirate taxi drivers, and the author, not a pirate himself, got caught up in the mix.
We should be careful about what we wish for in life. In his narrative, “How my preferred rank haunted me” Major Sylvester Chola described his haunting experience after he prayed to God for the specific rank of major at Zambia Air Force and, despite being one of the longest serving employees, he was by-passed for promotions which went to his peers and to his juniors.
In a piece titled “A fool’s lucky escape,” MWANGANA LUNGOWE one day went for a drink around midday and, by evening, he was not sober, but even in his  drunken stupor, he was aware that two thugs had earmarked, and eventually trailed, him  as he made his way back home  to rest but, although every dog has its day, this was certainly not their day.
“We survived death by a whisker” was a contribution by BWAKIYA BVUNDAMINA that made headlines in which the writer described how she and a close friend of hers survived what could have been death in cold blood.
Trouble started when the author climbed downstairs of her flat to collect  a souvenir the friend had brought her from abroad and the armed men pounced on them.
In another contribution, “A Painful Experience With ‘Aka Red, Naka Black’ , TIMOTHY KAMBILIMA, recalled a popular gambling game of the 1990s, which captured the imagination of many unsuspecting people, especially along the line of rail, who won, but mostly lost their hard earned cash. The author was such a victim at the hands of the smooth operators of the ‘lucrative’ pastime and he vowed never to get anywhere near such scams in future.
Three colleagues went in search of company business out in the woods of remote Kawambwa, but there, they came away with stories of snakes and a ghost, reminiscent of the horror movie “Dracula has risen from the grave” which turned their trip into a nightmare.
MACTRIBOUY MUPETA reported, in a piece titled “a creepy encounter with a ghost in haunted house”
STEVEN MUNDIA reminisced the strong bond of friendship he enjoyed with his dear parents before they departed and recounted how their relationship sadly broke down irretrievably, turning his life topsy-turvy, but noted that, all men, even the cold-blooded, have a chance at reform if their hearts are touched.
Donor funding can evoke all kinds of emotions and misperceptions in people who have little or no knowledge about its purpose and how it works.
MWEWA MWANSA, in a contribution titled “Parents’ Selfish Motives Destroyed Child’s Future” described how he helped rehabilitate a handicapped child using donor funds and her parents thought he was making a fortune for himself and they wanted their share.
It had been a decade, wrote JAMES SHIMWITWA, since his ordeal at the Garden of Eden. Every time he looked at his image in a mirror, dark memories of how he became wifeless, jobless and permanently deformed rushed to his mind he said in his sad story called “how I became wifeless, jobless and deformed.”
Christmas is a time of merry and joyous celebration of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, but this was not so for MWANGANA LUNGOWE that year because a snake decided to unleash its venom on his eldest son.
Our Correspondent, a former Times staffer, who was underprivileged narrated how he would have missed the opportunity to pursue his dream career– journalism– until he beat all odds, excelling  in an essay writing test that would reveal his latent talent and win him the sole and crucial bursary made available by  the Catholic Church.
In life, isn’t it quite normal for a teacher to like certain pupils in class with intellectual promise?
TIMOTHY KAMBILIMA, wrote about the embarrassment he found himself in due to familiarity with one of his best pupils and he warned of the risks of this kind of behaviour and advised total restraint  to avoid embarrassment.
In a piece titled “wages of stealing from work,” JAMES SHIMWITWA said the practice should be avoided at all costs because it could lead to dismissals because he himself nearly got into trouble over a television signal cable he lifted from his work place one day, but  in a twist of fate, was saved from the wrath of a mystic security man who needed his special television repair skills.
Ephraim Nkosi went to Johannesburg to seek greener pastures. He was given the opportunity to own a house, and grabbed it with both hands. Little did he know that he had been swindled, as he told
DIMAKATSO MOTAU.
Peer pressure, if blindly followed, can lead to mischief which, in turn, may attract dire consequences.
TIMOTHY KAMBILIMA narrated how he and his school mates survived expulsion from school one day after they went astray and imbibed a forbidden drink-Chibuku.
In a rare twist of fate, Our Correspondent, who loved and cared for his family, one day found himself standing accused of putting his own daughter in the family way.
Luckily, he escaped the wrath of his neighbours and family when the truth, which always has a way of coming out, emerged.
JAMES SHIMWITWA kept the stories flowing and this time he wrote about how he turned down a bribe to betray a friend.
What would you do if you had a myriad of financial woes, including looming eviction from a rented house and your friend’s wife dangled K1,000 cash to help her investigate your friend’s alleged infidelity?
This was the dilemma the author found himself in: to accept the money and betray his friend or reject it and suffer eviction and, less still, lose the prospect of marrying his fiancé.
Christmas is a time when we remember the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ who died for our sins, but Our Correspondent, instead of observing the day accordingly, went on a mischievous adventure on Christmas eve that nearly cost his life. He warned his fellow youths to guard against the dangers of immoral conduct.
When a friend advised JAMES SHIMWITWA, who had a troubled marriage, to visit a marriage counselor for a solution, he did not know he’d been led to a sly operator with his own hidden motives, luring him into giving up his adorable wife for his own immoral advantage!  He bared the scandal in a piece titled “I nearly killed marriage counsellor.”
Among the pastimes of the youth who lived in the Kabangwe area of Lusaka during the bygone years was bird hunting with catapults and fishing. One fishing expedition, however, almost ended in tragedy.
JOHM SHAKAFUSWA recollected how his elder brother’s daring effort saved him from drowning.
Our Correspondent, in a piece “Cocky gateman gets corned,” narrated the tale of a tricky and cheeky gate installer who nearly conned him out of his money to do a repair job, and how an ingenious plan helped in recovering the money he had paid in advance for the job.
NB: Contributions to this column, the column you write, should be sent to The Editor, “It happened to me” P O Box 30394, Lusaka, email: tozletters@gmail.com or drop them at any of our Times Printpak offices.  Please note that it may take some time before articles are published; this is because they are published on a first- come- first- served basis. Don’t lose hope. Keep sending in your valuable contributions. Editor.