MONDAY GONE, my friend Pat told me to go ‘fly a kite’. I don’t know why he got so upset, since I was telling him about the Vaucluse gasification project.
But before I get too far, let me tell you that I did indeed fly a kite and it lasted for almost ten seconds. (I know the same Pat could relate to dat.)
I was sharing the story (reader, please tell me if you think he had just cause to get vex) about the gasification project; how it would be good for Barbados and the planet; and he said I was full of hot air. He began to accuse me of supporting foreign thinking . . . just so. So, I done with Pat for now.
When he sees how beneficial turning waste into energy is, maybe he might say sorry for getting on so apoplectic and unapologetic. But then again, who says sorry these days? I won’t hold my breath on this one.
Sadly, I had no choice but to hold my breath in the bank the other day. And on the plane. Let me tell you about the bank first. I know things tight; and so the bank is usually full these days, with some dipping into their savings. I had to pay a visit too, just before the long weekend. I was behind a good-looking gentleman, perhaps in his early fifties.
The refinement was coming out in the sideburns, in a salt-and-pepper kinda way. He glanced at me and smiled. It was like slow motion. His cologne was familiar, like the testers I spray all over me, since they not only free, but have such a clean aroma.
You could tell this man was a hot stepper. But then it hit me . . . the strong, silent type. Oh lawd have us mercy; this gasification before my transaction was an abomination.
The thing is, the man stepped forward and looked at me in aloofness, rubbing his nostrils, leaving the folks behind me to wonder. The farcity of it all. And you ask me how I know it was him?
You see the arrows on the floor they now have so that we don’t get lost on our way to the teller? Well, he was on one of the curvatures, so unless the people on the other side had some kind of flatulent dexterity, it had to be him.
Now for the plane truth. Flight was smooth and on time. Lady next to me, sleeping hard. We ready to disembark and she dead to the world. So, trying to do a good deed, I gently awake her from her slumber. Wiping her mouth and blushing with embarrassment, she apologises profusely, while I stand to let her in front.
The line is still as she wrestles with her luggage. A faint sound emanates, much like the last note of the dove singing, “Moses speak God’s word”.
She glances at me and rushes away, guilty of passing air as we land.
Veoma Ali is an author, actor, broadcaster, advertising exec and most importantly, a karaoke lover.
