LIFE can be funny at times and when people behave in strange ways especially in public among strangers, it might be interesting to interrogate their state of mind before condemning them. SIMON MWALE narrates his encounter with an offensive stranger. Read on…

THE tale I’m about to relate happened to me recently in Lusaka. We’d run low on Zesco power units at home even with the unprecedented load-shedding which has generally increased the life span of units for most households, and I went to buy some more.
Coincidentally, it was also time for me to renew our DStv monthly subscription and I went to an Engen Service Station on Lusaka’s Chilimbulu Road where there’s a pay point for both MultiChoice and Zesco services.
Not unexpectedly, there was a long queue which I joined at the tail-end. Suddenly, a young lady greeted me: “How are you, Sir?”  I replied that I was fine and hoped she, too, was well. I didn’t know or recognise the young woman, but was curious to know why she had addressed me as “Sir.”
She explained that she knew me from one of the universities in Lusaka where she’s a student and I’m a part-time lecturer. “Oh, I see,” I said and the next couple of minutes were spent on some detailed introductions such as what course she was taking and what subjects I was lecturing.
As I interacted with the student, just outside the queue, a young man left the queue to join us. The student introduced the young man to me as her younger brother. Sooner than expected, the student excused herself and jumped into a car that had just arrived apparently to pick her up. She left the task of buying units to her brother.
The young man was excited at learning that I was a scribe and began asking questions on what he could do to become one. I gave him some of the rudiments of a journalist, including having an inquisitive mind, having a good command of the English language both written and oral, being observant, alert and having a zest for life and adventure.
As he engaged me in the career talk, the queue had shortened and we both decided to move closer as our conversation went on just outside the line, but we firmly knew our positions in the queue. For me, I was between a certain gentleman and a short young girl in black.
Presently, almost from nowhere, a certain man confronted me and wondered how I happened to be where I was in the queue. I told the man that I’d been part of the queue ever since I arrived at the pay point some 30 minutes or so ago.
“No, we haven’t seen you. You have just jumped the queue. Where have you come from?”
Surprised at his use of the plural “we”, I asked the man to ask the people nearest me if I was not part of the queue or, worse still, to confirm his fears that indeed I’d jumped the queue. As the exchange was slowly taking on the proportions of a royal argument, a certain man from behind came forward in an effort to intervene.
The man asked the two people who’d sandwiched me if I was a ‘gate crasher’ and they both, vouched for me as being legitimately part of the queue. This was supported and confirmed even by all the other customers nearby that they had seen me and that I’d been in the queue as long as they themselves had been.
“No, we haven’t seen you? We also want to go home and do other things. You can’t jump the queue,” the man continued to grumble as he walked back to join the queue at the back where, I was to discover, he had been some 10 to 15 people behind me.
I thought now that the man had disappeared from my view, the matter was closed. Far from it! From where he was, he kept running commentaries about why people should not jump queues, causing much derisive laughter among the other people in the queue.
While this was happening, I heard a voice from the back that said, “Ba Mudala, what is your problem? You are making a lot of noise about nothing. That person (me) in front has been here all along…”
The lone protestor cut the other man short: “No, we haven’t seen him (referring to me).” Presently, I was two persons away from the ‘finishing line’ or the counter. One more person and it was my turn to be served and who did I see on my left?
The strange, offensive man who all along had not seen me. This time, he came too close to me and the unmistaken reek of alcohol hit me in the face like a club. I asked the man: “Sir, what do you want from me? Please respect yourself if you’re a gentleman, which I think you look like.”
After three to five minutes, the teller had attended to me, and the next person to be attended to, according to the queue, was the short young lady behind me, but what did I see? The adamant man pushed his hand laden with cash to the teller who quickly accepted the money and started to transact.
My heart sank and I shouted, literary shouted as I pleaded with the teller: “Madam, why are you serving this gentleman? The young girl behind me is the next person to be attended to. Please don’t serve this man who has ignored the queue.”
“I have not jumped the queue. You’re the one who jumped the queue,” the man insisted, pointing at me. “Sir, you can’t continue accusing me of doing something I haven’t done. All the others have told you the truth, but why can’t you accept it?”
Just then, incredibly, someone shouted from behind. “Let him (the noisy man) be served. We have agreed here that the man should go so that we can have peace of mind. Just don’t mind him. It’s a collective decision we arrived at seeing as his extended stay here might provoke a serious altercation or something like that.”
“Is that so?” I asked with shock and relief rolled into one.
“Yes, it is so. Let the drunkard go and rest,” a voice said, to the uproarious laughter of all of us.
I was speechless and wondered why a person who is probably a family man should put on his worst manners in public. I drove off immediately as I pondered how this strange man would have behaved if he was not inebriated.
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