Sometimes you just have to call a dish a dish not a bath tub. I mean when you look at people like Stakes ‘Girls’ Chitambo, they are fools.
Why else would you want to call a man like him anything other than the fool that he is?  I have gotten the ire of many people when I have referred to their actions as being stupid.  Not that they themselves were stupid, no ways, but their actions were.
Of course, in Zambia, reference to anyone’s actions as being stupid or foolish can get you a solid beating because it is considered an insult to merely utter such words.
I mean haven’t you encountered someone who is every inch an idiot get so worked up because you pointed it out that he was an idiot?
The idiocy is not in your pronouncement. It is in their actions.
While they accept having done the actions they do not accept that you should use the words ‘stupid’ or ‘foolish’ or that they are idiotic in doing what they did.  Trouble is they never really bothered to check the dictionary for the meanings of these words.
All they know is that the words are ‘insults’!
Insults, my foot, when you have demented fellows like Stakes who stops thinking as soon as he sees a female thing pass in front of him!
That guy is probably my best friend and what we have in common is that we both have had sexual encounters in the thousands with such hoards of varieties of women efforts to count them lead to abject failure because many of them we will never even remember!
Two idiots, you would be tempted to say of Stakes and I but I always refuse adamantly to be ganged together with him.
When I am sober, I can never go to bed with a barefooted village girl whom I find selling cobs of boiled fresh maize by the tavern or at the roadside.
I cannot ever be found seducing that underage girl who has been sent by her
mother to sell off a few boiled eggs to some drunks at the local pub so that tomorrow they can afford a few buns, some sugar and tea bags for breakfast.
I will feel sorry for such people and allow them to go about their business without adding to their woes by also dragging them into the bush or into the back seat of some car (mine, a friend’s or hired) and doing the most unthinkable things with them before paying them K20 and innocently disappearing in the dark.
That is for Stakes as sober as they come, and even worse when he is drunk.
I fear that that man might even be doing awkward things to domestic animals when he is drunk, I tell you!
For a man of my foibles, which are solidly based on my inability to evade drinking drinks which make me too drunk and which consequently cause me to not be too sure what I am doing, you cannot call me a sex maniac like you should be calling Stakes.
Even if I may end up doing unthinkable acts with all sorts of females all over the shore, fine, you can call my actions stupid, while for Stakes, his actions are stupid, in so far as he knowingly does unthinkable things with strange people and neglects to use condoms!
His actions are also foolish because he can end up soiling himself, his wife and so many other women with such varieties of sexually transmitted infections in a matter of months, the world will no longer be a safe place to live for you and me.
On that score, he also qualifies to be an idiot plus other invectives.
Don’t argue!  I am talking about such high degrees of recklessness which inevitably qualify Stakes or other persons for the terms which we sometimes use to describe their actions.
They ought to sit down, reflect upon their actions, check the dictionary meanings of these words and accept that they sometimes actually do fully deserve to be called Stupid Idiots or Foolish Fools!
These days, we have dictionaries on our phones so when you drive your car carelessly and someone calls you something that sounds demeaning or plain unpalatable, before you start making obscene signs at them or screaming back that they themselves are worse than whatever they called you than you are, Google the word soberly and if it suits your actions, apologise and go quietly.
There are so many imbeciles, demented fellows, crocodiles and hippos, stinking chuff and whatever else who we meet daily and who will irritate us with their actions but get thoroughly peeved when we tell them what they are.
Idiots! Fools! Baboons! Green mambas in the green grass!
And that man Stakes, incorrigible sex maniac, stupid and idiotic, and hey … dead man walking!  Yes, he is a dead man walking! Already condemned to death!
Awaiting the day to cease and be buried!
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Talking about Stakes ‘Girls’ Chitambo, he is living in fear right now.
In the night last week, he remembered some girl he had met some weeks back and went to his Whats-Up account and sent her a simple text message which read ‘Hi’.
The number called back in no time and a croaky male voice that reminded you of either a constant Chibuku guzzler or a mean and nasty ruffian was soon booming over from the other side speaking in Bemba.
“Who are you?” it said threateningly.
Stakes was lost for words, unsure what would become of him if he answered.
In fact he had been so unprepared for the possibility that someone else might answer the phone than the girl.  What if he answered?
What should the other guy say?
How would he explain the relationship with the girl if the man wanted to know?
“Who are you, you male sex organ?” screamed the husky voice in Bemba.
Stakes cut the line.  Seconds later, the phone was ringing again, attracting the attention of his wife.
“You don’t want to answer the phone?” she asked.
He remained quiet till it stopped ringing.  Within seconds it was ringing again.  As he was about to cut it, his wife grabbed it and said ‘hello’!
“Are you the wife or girlfriend of the man who is writing love messages to my girl at midnight?”
It wasn’t anywhere near midnight and the man sounded so mean she got confused and whispered ‘yes’.
“So you don’t give him enough of your female sex organ for him to be searching for my girl in the middle of the night?  Give him the phone!”
Totally speechless, she gave him back the phone and told him to talk.
“Hullo,” he said timidly.
“You rug!” screamed the man, “You patch!  I will find you!  I will go to Airtel and they will give me all your details from this number and I will find you and I will do terribly terrible things to you!  Do you know me?  Do you think I am one to play with?  Wait, you male sex organ!  Playing with Roobie?  Eh?  My Roobie? You will see it!”
Stakes cut the line and switched off the phone.
“Uhm?” mumbled the wife quizzically.  “So what is that all about?
Will you ever stop this…this thing of going after every woman on earth?”
“But who said I went after his…his…I went after every woman on earth?” he asked her.  “I just sent her a message saying ‘hi’, that’s all. Is ‘hi’ a love message?”
“That’s a problem whether you see it or not,” quarreled the wife.
“You are with me and instead of kissing me and doing what I am waiting for you to do, you are busy saying ‘hi’ other people’s wives at midnight!  Let him beat you.  It’s too much of you.  Let him do the things he said.”
“Shut up!” he said mildly.
“There is nothing wrong with saying ‘hi’ to anyone any time. And this is only 21:30 hours, not midnight!”
The truth is that he is now scared silly.  Whenever someone honks on the road, for whatever reason, even when in fact they are honking at someone else, he just imagines it’s that man with the hoarse angry voice.
He has swerved dangerously almost hitting other vehicles on more than one occasion.
If anyone knocks at his office door, he freezes before saying a scared ‘Come in’, sometimes failing altogether to make the statement and only relaxing when it’s work mates including Deograta Kamugode who walk in instead.
Idiot? Sex maniac? Fool?  Take your pick!
Mixture Njombwinjo is on Facebook.