“WHEN I USE A WORD”, said Humpty Dumpty, “it means just what I choose it to mean”. Many of us do likewise. A woman’s “no” may mean “no”, “yes” or even “If you stop what you’re doing, I’ll kill you, so help me, I will!” Sometimes all three at the same time.
However, you can’t take other people’s words and choose what you want them to mean.
That is bad. Even though it is mostly done unintentionally. This is the Education Minister’s fault. He’s been encouraging Barbadians to have unprotected sex, an activity I heartily endorse.
But he should have entreated them while so doing to read their NATIONs carefully so they comprehend what’s being said. The two activities are by no means mutually exclusive.
Hot tip here for the Nation: if y’all want to sell nuffty papers, start a page called “Licks in Lowdown”. Nearly everybody says to me: “You still write? I never get a chance to read a paper”.
Yet let someone lambaste me in a letter and the whole world knows: “Yuh get licks today!” “Lashes in yuh backside!” Or this last week: “Ah see Al Gilkes suing yuh! Ah too glad!”
We don’t get the Sunday paper. And when that news kept coming through, I had the bowels for days. I ’fraid Al Gilkes. You remember when rain washed out reggae at Farley Hill? And everybody had it that Al was going to sue God?
God passed by me that Sunday, clearly troubled. I told Him not to worry. Rain falls on the just and unjust. We farmers lose from drought and flooding. Why not entertainers? He had a good case.
“I know, Lowdown, but who goin’ represent me? All the lawyers over with that other fellow.”
Finally I got the courage to Google “Al Gilkes”.
Went past a big headline “Al Gilkes dead!” Saw where Al Gilkes did a YouTube video on “Dick medicine”. And finally found his “rattled” column.
Al wasn’t rattled by what I wrote, but rather by a box insert by the Nation editors which grossly misrepresented both him and me. Yet most Bajans misread him.
Al is willing to settle out of court and promises to remember me at payout time. I don’t want no money. I want an apology. And no ordinary apology either. I want an “enhanced” apology with a leg ham, full body massage, the works.
But worse was to come. “Lowdown, you should be ashamed!” shouted a new voice over the phone, “that poor girl Veoma came to write on your page in February, announcing her virginal status to the world. Now two months later she’s at the gynaecologist getting checked for pregnancy. You’re a dog!”
Lord have mercy! I had cold sweats. Flash back to courting days when every month was a nightmare. Checking calendar. Waiting for phone call. Until finally one day she would greet you in song: “Red sails in the sunset, just guess what I see, red sails in the sunset, you ain’t no daddy.”
And then it hit me. I don’t know Veoma. Unless columnist pictures have found a way to do a little thing between the pages, it can’t be me. So I read the lady’s column. And again a misconception. She was at the doctor merely for a routine check of the dotcom. Phew!
Veoma was gracious enough to mention our goat’s milk/bay leaf drink which is selling really well. We try to keep the sugar level to a minimum. And have noticed that Guyana sugar is sweeter than Bajan so we have to use less.
A friend in a relationship with a Guyanese lady tells me this is true on the whole of all types of Guyanese sugar. Maybe Veoma in her travels could treat me to some real Demerara sweetness to prove for myself.
And Al I need your help too. In that Al Gilkes’ YouTube video on “Dick medicine”, there is a review of a product similar to the male enhancement brew I promised to try out. Could you handle it?
Last week I sniffed the sachet before going for a flute lesson with André Woodvine. At one point he got me to grasp him around the waist to check the right way to breathe. And … Lord have mercy!
Richard Hoad is a farmer and social commentator.
Email porkhoad@gmail.com
