I Can't Believe She Peed In My Dining Room!

My family is messed up, so messed up the very thought of it sends me into fits and stutters, they are just plain embarrassing. Or maybe the word for it is uncouth.

I don’t mean the immediate, I mean the others.

So I thank God every time a holiday comes and goes and I don't see hide nor hair of the fat ones, the skinny ones, the tall ones, the short ones, the dark ones, the light ones all of them.

I strongly suspect though, that my please-do-not-come-again vibe has something to do with it because quite frankly everything I do for them is punctuated by please-do-not-come-again. Because Zimbabweans, Africans, we black people are wont to go holiday in other people’s homes

We show up unannounced, lugging great big suitcases and in some cases, like this tall dark skinny one did, we even bring dirty laundry. To a house, by a house I mean my house, that doesn't have a maid where city council water shyly drips out of the taps after midnight, and the house is run on a tight budget.


She stayed for two weeks.

African hospitality (our greatest folly), where mama makes me to scrub for them, beg them to come and eat, ask them if they would like a cup of tea with that, no? Water perhaps? Or perhaps a glass of her cherished Mazoe Orange Juice which she keeps hidden at the back of her wardrobe (mind you she doesn't know I know, but I know).

All this for a non-paying visitor who's come to the city for her yearly fattening up before the ploughing season starts. To be fair however they usually bring with them a pumpkin or two and a sack full of peanuts, which I used to help mama shell, but now I refuse outright.

I remember once when I had just discovered the joys of DSTV sleeping in the wee hours of the morning watching programme after programme, Lord forbid that I miss out on anything. Until I discovered that every programme was rebroadcast at least 4 times a month.

Before I made this life altering, sleep inducing discovery something quite repulsive happened.

Who should show up at my doorstep, but some obscure 3 times removed aunt. She was sick and had come to the city for treatment. None too pleased I ushered her in and began the welcome rituals, which thank God did not include,

"How are your cattle?"

"I hope your chickens are fine," 


But did include;

"Have you started ploughing?"

And a politely phrased version of 

"How is that sickly child, the one your errant daughter saddled you with?"

Having plonked herself on the carpet she declared that she would spend the night on it. And so instead of spending the night in the single bed I would have forfeited for her, she would sleep amongst the chairs in the dining room. 

This is just a portion of a great big room compartmentalised into a dining and sitting room area.

She had one request though.

"I sometimes need to wake up and vomit, and I am not as fast as I used to be, so get me a container to could use."

Simple enough, I got her the bowl we used to use for the dog.

Five minutes later she was in bed/on carpet, and snoring. I was settled by the telly. And that was that.

Until it came, the sound of liquid pouring into a plastic container. A dripping sound, on and on it went, until with a

Drip,

Drip,

Drip, 

It stopped. My nose strained trying to catch a whiff of it in the air. Surely vomit wasn’t like that. And then she confirmed it, what I didn't want to hear,

"Oh you are still up?"

I was.

"Yeah," she continued, “just taking a leak."

In our dining area, where I eat.

She peed in a container, when she could have summoned her last reserves of strength in those disease riddled bones to get up and go to the toilet. 

Hai Mwari wangu, ndousvina kauyu!

So pardon me if you come to my house and I slam the door in your face. I don't care how many times removed you are, please-just-don't-come!