Smartphonology

These things came into the market a long time ago. Yes, a long time ago. But I was too stony- aged to realize that they were there.  Am talking about smartphones. All along I have been using my Nokia 1680. You know that kaphone that shyly hides its face in the palm of your hand fearing to be seen by bigger phones owned by your neighbours? This kaphone necessitates that you to have a magnifying lens to see what you are doing on it. Sometimes, touching it makes you feel bad. As though you are a pedophile. Defiling a minor.

I hope none of you reading this post has it. Otherwise, you would stop reading my post. And scroll to the bottom to read the conclusion. A conclusion of whether I still loathe  Nokia 1680. Relax and continue reading the post. The sweetness of a story is not in its conclusion. It is in its totality.

The kaphone, Nokia 1680, was fashionable some years ago. Yes, that is what I had been using. But it was good. It had  a camera. A pixels camera. You know how these urbane boys like arguing over who has the phone with many pixels? It is as though they are going to eat the pixels for supper. Me, I didn't care. As long as my Nokia 1680 could beat my mother pictures without her feeling a lot of pain; everything was cool. Many pixels or few pixels. Mega pixels or giga pixels, I cared not.

After winning the essay competition at the university, I decided not to tie for myself so much. At times, it is cool to let go of life anxieties. Anxieties about rent after school. Anxieties over who to marry when the right time comes. Anxieties over where to be buried when you die. Anxieties over which priest to say 'let soil go back to soil' when they get tired of your dead body. Anxieties over whether to go to hell or heaven after the send-off. You know those damn anxieties that make you feel as though you want to susu in class? I had to get rid of them.

I bought my smart phone. A friend escorted me. You should have seen me in the quest for the phone. Standing like a confused gecko in a packing space. At Safaricom House, Kimathi street.

The Safaricom house waring these smart phones is like a maze. There are too many people;  blue chip professionals,  smartly dressed-classy pickpockets, ambitious students, pregnant women, truant primary school kids, single desperate boys, girls in smelly weaves(men, do I hate those things!)

We find our way through the maze. My friend bulldozes some people here and there. Throwing them off-balance and not apologizing. Because he is a campus dude(a beefy fourth year campus dude.) Because he knows I will buy him nyama choma after leaving Safaricom house. And most importantly, because we have come to buy a smart phone. A smart phone for the 'squirrel in the choir'.

I thank my lucky stars that this dude(Serengeti) came with me. I would  not have done much. To me, all this people look like they are acting some drama. A drama about Jesus coming back to pick the selected few. Were it not for this pragmatic friend, I would have asked everyone in the shop to join me in the St. Paul's theatre. To act the crowd scene in the passion of Christ.

I finally find my phone. It is identical to my friend's. A Tecno P3s. I wouldn't risk buying any other brand. No, I wouldn't buy a Samsung. Even though I wrote about it in my winning essay at the university. No, no, no.

My Tecno; my wife.

 Now, come to think of a Samsung phone this way.  Who would help me operate it?  Help me in whatsapping, bluetoothing,true-calling and androiding? You see now why I bought  a Tecno? Because this buddy of mine will help me in doing all those techno-crazy things that a Tecno phone can do. Do you still disapprove of my actions?  Do you think wise of me to have done so? Well, I don't care whether you do. As long as I can now share my blog address to friends on whatapps, decorate my ears with white earphones and swipe through the phone screen, everything is cool with me.

And one more thing, my Tecno is black. Ebony dark. I would not stomach buying a white phone.White is girlish. Dameish.  Can you imagine me, 'the squirrel' with a white phone? White phone, my foot. Because of its conspicuous(read 'shouting') white color, it would disappear the first night I fish it out of my pocket. Voom! It would vamoose with a phone thief. And I would be left there. Crying and shouting. With everybody looking but not helping. Because this is Nairobi. Where everything is shauri yako.