The 419 Sweetheart Scam

 

The Kiddo Scam: Gimme the Money!

My phone got thugged yo. And you won’t believe where this happened - Nakumatt. I am not saying that he did it. My mental process simply can’t come to grips with the fact that this happened right after I ran into Bobi Wine.

Yes, that will be the weed guy.

I was told by the security company (Securex, which is Indian owned) to take a receipt to prove that I have in fact ever owned a phone. I didn’t have one. Most of the phones I use are donations (I saw your phone, liked it, took it, and then drunk-told you about it at a later date). I definitely wasn’t going to show up without a receipt because there was a 30-70 chance that I would be compensated. I went to my boys over at Mutaasa Kafeero to ‘make a receipt’ for an imaginary Samsung Galaxy Y. The price of the phone?

350 G’s. Like, Three Fitty G’s.

Let me tell you something about Indians – those garlic reeking, chili pepper motherfuckers will never give you free shit; and by never, I mean even-if-you-killed-yourself-twice never. You’ll have to shag his mother to get a second glance from him. He said I shouldn’t expect any financial remuneration from the company, that the most he can do is track the phone.

Ay, Muyindi, there is no phone to track. Here, have some garlic and a pat on the back.

That was my simple kiddo scam. It backfired.

The Badass Scam: The Four One Nine.

2a.m: Inbox blip on my facebook.

Hello dear,

Am Linda Harry, nice to meet you <blah blah blah> please I want to know about you more and I also have a special issue I want to discuss with you, please contact me on <some email>. I will send you more photos in my next mail…

The first thing I did of course was check out her pics, it is like facebook reflex. I don’t care about mutual friends (as in bitch, ani akumanyi?). Nah, I don’t discriminate - just touch up that pout and I’ll accept your request with open legs.

Kinda like what Miss Linda did.

 

Babe, I don’t care if you are retarded and you have AIDS; 

with those looks – you have a VIP pass to my drawers…and wallet.

Wallpaper that bitch.

I feel fortunate that I was born in this era. My only complaints are Lady Gaga and Global Warming. See, a Gazillion years ago, you had to have balls to get anything. Whether it was getting food, respect, a place at the drinking joint or girls – especially girls, you needed cojones, big ones. You had to fight cock-swinging cavemen, kill leopards, sing, and dance and run over coals of fire for your rights to access a little piece of ass.  

These days, it is much simpler. All it takes is some rubber and an email declaring that you’re really all that…and a bag of chips. A little “haha” reply will earn you a direct flight out to Pound City. But even if it is that much simpler, this is too simple, too easy. 

I sent her an email, telling her that she was really hot and that I was having trouble keeping the lotion away because, ‘your open legs are all over my desktop.’ She replied with all those whore-laced fancy honeys and shit.

Then she told me that she was a refugee in some Senegalese camp and that she was an heiress to a 7.5 million Euro fortune but she couldn’t claim it. That she wanted me (recently promoted to darling) to be the one to get the money like some sort of trustee.  All she needed was my full name, age, occupation and phone number.

I am not saying I did not want to fuck her like Hurricane Sandy fucked the East Coast and that after I got done with her, she’d probably thank me and be a better whore for years to come(ain’t that right, whore?); I am just saying I know bullshit when I see it.

I’m quoting Chris Rock, “There’s something about a woman pulling out money from her own wallet that just dries up the (**that word is too razor sharp, I can’t type it**).”

I said to myself, “Self, this is a good one. Now, how the fuck are you going to answer this bitch?”

Dear Millionaire Bitch from the Banks of Beyond,

First of all I just want to go on the record that that dress could cure cancer. You killin it yo. I would also like to mention, in passing, that a pair of leather pants and a gag ball would bring out the slut in you better. Secondly, I am not big on salacious interwebular activities (cyber sex). If you want some dick, you’ll have to escape that refugee camp. I don’t care if you gang bang the whole rebel battalion or if you ride on the back of a frog to get it done. I am not leaving UG for love or money because the rolexes here are simply the shit.

I spent the last hour looking for a single word that fits the description of, ‘really thick, dimwitted, panty waste of a bitch’ and the most accurate answer zeroed on was you, Miss Linda. First of all you are a dude, or at the very least, an ex-dude. Now, let’s talk a little about your balls, what they produce and your brain, how it works. You are giving your money to someone you have never met but trust completely, right?

Good. Personally, I don’t have any experience on managing my own money. I have what they call a menstrual salary – it comes once month and gets done in three days. I will blow your cash on prostitutes, drugs and alcohol with no second thought. My country just dropped from 2^nd to 8^th position in the CNN Global Alcohol Consumption report. I’m pretty sure 7.5million euros worth of liquor would give us a little boost.

Yes, we can be in a long distance relationship, I am your boyfriend from the future. After this email, you are going to tell me to send an email to your bank. The bank (which of course won’t actually be the bank) will then call me and I’ll get all excited and shit and send my account number. With my name and account number, you have all you need. You’ll then sweep out my account.

But that’s okay.

Because my account is always empty. Not even you can sweep money from there faster than myself when I get a deposit. You see, I have many debts so I try to spend as much as I can before the loan sharks strike. So here’s my account number 879-5578-1147-382, DFCU. Although I think it is safer if you just shipped the money in coffins. That way it won’t be detected. I saw it in a movie, it totally worked.

PS: Send me more pics…

PPS: If a bomb was dropped in your refugee camp, what would the world lose? A bomb – the world would lose a fuckin bomb.

Yours truly,

Gigolo from the Other Side of Beyond

***

You know me, always imitated, never duplicated.I'll be MIA this weekend. 

Live in the moment, enjoy it!

This post is intended to make you hate me. I place your declaration of love very high on the list of things I don’t need to know on this Friday morning. I’ve reached a level of vanity where I feel like if I were more flexible, I’d blow myself. So make sure to hate me when you hit the bottom. Er, the button – when you hit the share button at the bottom.

Don’t let my pissed-offedness offend y’all. Now, let’s break open this condom, shall we?

I do not have a mirror in my room. Not because I can’t afford one but the thought just never crosses my mind. How do I know if I’m looking good or not? I don’t. Well, some mornings, curiosity gets the best of me and I take a pic. So, it is like 3a.m. on a Tuesday night and I’m in the men’s room at Casablanca. Through my drunken eyes I look at the mirror and the guy looking back literally scares the creeps out of me.

I have like two new lines in my brow that no one told me about. Ketchup is white in comparison with the latest color of my eyes. I am getting skinnier by the minute. Probably because nowadays I prefer to buy cigarettes in packs and those dreadful little motherfuckers are like blood sucking vampires.

Basically, I look like I’ve aged 3 years in 3 months.

And yet I just won’t quit.

I do not want to quit – I stopped fighting it a long time ago.

I stopped letting myself feel guilty because the sound of beer bottles clinking excites me the same way sleigh bells excite kids on Christmas Eve.

I stopped regretting each morning I woke up with no money at all. I bite my tongue each time I am about to say “holy crap” when I wake up on a strange bathroom floor.

I stopped calling people every time I woke up feeling suicidal and full of self-loathing. It used to take longer for the tightness in my chest to subside but I’ve condemned the grieving process to even more sousing.  

I turned it all off.

For the first time in a long time, I feel very good about myself.

Life is too dreadfully short to listen to the opinion of every dimwit who can string together a sentence. I was sipping Vodka at 2p.m. on a week day in some kinky, dangerous, dangerous place where morals and dignity are washed out as soon as you step in. One of my buddies said something that made me order another round.

He said, “Why would you let yourself lose sleep over people you met barely a year ago? They don’t have a right to have a say in anything that concerns you. They are not supposed to matter. They don’t even have a right to ask you how the fuck your morning is.”

We were picking on the unfortunate fella who committed suicide at Mary Stuart last semester. He did not kill himself over a girl but we dictated that he did. He killed himself over what? Books? Money? We didn’t give a flying fuck; it was at Mary Stuart – the biggest girls’ hall in the biggest University in the country.

Most of my friends, including the above mentioned guy (no, not the suicide guy, the other one), are people I met less than a year ago. The friends I have this year are not the very ones I had last year and probably won’t be in my inner circle next year. Because I get bored easily and I always say or do some inappropriate mind numbing doodle that leaves them no choice but to let go. Do you know what that means? It means one thing;

I don’t give a shit.

Living life on the edge gives me an incredible adrenaline rush. I know I am on a crash course but hey, the good die young. Last weekend, I was with the most awesome person on earth. With this babe, I’ll never run out of stuff to write. We got to the bar. There was an old bloke sipping beer solo at a darker end of the bar. My friend thought it necessary to pick on him. 

As in, how the hell can you be in a bar and not have a lighter at your age?

The guy’s face darkened. The poor sod was offended and he was out for blood. I gave up shooting pool with a girl whose T-Shirt said “Drink ‘till She’s Hot” and spent the next hour trying to keep my friend out, and this nigger in. Now, I’m just over a meter tall so some of you must be thinking, ‘No freakin way!’

I got this stunt from Kevin Hart. In case there’s an impending fight, I’ll try to convince you that fighting me is a very, very bad idea. I made it clear that if he touched my friend again, I will, “FUCK YOU UP REAL BAD DAWG!”

I was treading terra incognita so when he started shoving me around, I aborted the mission. I touched the tip of my imaginary cowboy hat in farewell and said, “I’ll be anywhere else moffos.”

  

Later in the night, we went to a club in Munyonyo. I’ve forgotten the name of the place. I always forget the names. Most times I hit a random club and I’m like, “Wait, I’ve actually been here before! I bet you a tenner the toilets are that side.”

She said, “I have enough money for transport or booze, but not both. Do you want a beer?”

Why, yes, I thought you’d never ask!

It was nice not to be certain of the future. Not to care about outcomes. We watched girls whore around. They were to trying to make it seem like it is at least a little bit difficult for guys to hook up with them. After that we flagged down a random ride and it dropped us somewhere I don’t even know. Then we got a boda-b to go to her place.

Somewhere along the way, we started arguing. It had something to do with me over tapping her breasts. I was offended and told her she’s such a fuckin bitch. She told the boda-b guy to drop me because I was such a fuckin asshole.

4a.m, alone, broke, cold and in the middle of nowhere.

Welcome to my world.

Leonard Cohen once said that there’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in. So if you still love me, I’m glad to know that I rate above a cabbage on the friendship scale.

Happy Women’s Day everyone! I’m heading over to Writing Our World to cook for my lady writer friends. This is going to be no menopause festival so you’re all welcome!

Re-Scripting the Hangover

The night might have involved snorting cocaine off the belly buttons of a few young girls who had a few hugs less from their fathers. It could have involved a primate and a gay couple getting married before dawn. There are flashes, images of me hitch hiking for a ride on a deserted road at 5a.m. I flagged down a random ride, looked at the driver, and told him to take me to my favorite brothel.  

He said, “There’s a drunk woman in the back seat. It just so happens that she’s my wife.”

Every time Freddie calls me for a link up, I brace myself for a cornucopia of the best and worst. While some girls pride themselves in being mobile brothels, this one prides herself in being a mobile bar. I find crazy people compelling and this girl is like nine different shades of weird. She called me for a “ketch up” at some hostel in Wandegeya. I should’ve prepped myself for a rollercoaster when she showed up donning torn baggy jeans, a tank top peeping under a XXL Polo T, slippers and a duffle bag full of Guinness bottles.

The room we went to was more of a bar than a students’ residence. Everything was thrown everywhere. The only thing giving off a faint sense of organization was the neat arrangement of every tribe of liquor on the floor. Curls of sweet smoke lazily crawled up to the ceiling, blending with the dim blue light. It went without saying that time here was measured in bottles in cigarettes.

I felt at peace with my chi. Then she started telling me about the last time we were together. Apparently I asked a mutual friend of ours for a “chow”.

Or, as urban reggae lovers would put it, ‘I begged her a fuck’.

This mutual friend is real sweet, real nice and real tight. In fact she’s BFF material so my pleas for pity sex must’ve put her in an awkward position. So the question is, should I have been filled with self spite and regret on hearing that I’d hit on her a gazillion times in a record two hours?

No

I was more interested in finding out, “why would anyone not want to fuck Arthur?”

Because Science.

She narrated how I’d hit on everyone that day and how they had all turned me down. She said, “I felt so sorry for your already sorry ass. In fact, for an hour or so, I considered having you as my first one night stand.”

It hurt that I’d missed out on a possibly enlightening session in coital choreography. You know what they say about missing out on possibly enlightening sessions in coital choreography?

Nothing, they don’t say anything about those.

I raised an eyebrow with this look of you know, the circumstances are more or less the same. I could take you up on that offer tonight…?

She laughed and said, “You can file that request under ‘no chance in hell’. My bae (girlfriend) is coming around.”

Oh, did I mention she’s kuchu (gay)? Well, she is.

It so happens that there’s a girl I am supposed to meet that same day. We share a history – if going to a random club, picking a random babe, getting drunk and making out in the middle of the dance floor counts as history anyway. I haven’t seen her during day and I don’t know her name. I saved her as number as TGIF – This Girl I Fucked.

I didn’t actually – it just looks cool and shit. Hey, did you know that adding ‘and shit’ to any sentence makes it sound cool and shit?

I call TGIF and she’s kind enough to let me know that she’s coming with a friend. The thing I dig about girls like TGIF is that they are down to party. After a few drinks she’ll “accidentally” let you touch her boobs for like ten seconds. Staying for the rest of the party becomes just formality. My mind was working along the lines of ‘if the friend is anything like her then this night is going to be what I like to call a doozy.’

Threesome, I see you.

Two beers and seventeen cigarettes later, she showed up.

With a friend --

--her boyfriend.

He’s younger than me, he drives, doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, he wears OBEY and TRUKFIT and all that shit – he’s basically a non smoking teetotaler. They looked so happy together. I convinced him to down a glass of White Mischief and he got drunk. With worry and concern scribbled all over her face, she gave up the party and took him home.

Being single had never felt so lonely.

With all my get-laid hopes bashed, my full focus was on the most faithful companion on earth – alcohol. Freddie’s brother was throwing a house party somewhere along Mawanda road. We got lost. She abused the boda-b guy for not knowing where we were going.

“Do I look stupid to you? Wait, are you saying I don’t know where I am going? Of course I don’t know where the fuck I’m going! Do you want to know why? Because that’s your job motherfucker – to figure out where the fuck I am going and get me the there! You don’t know where we are going? Do you even know where you are going? Have you ever --?”

Add a few komanyokos and msssttcchhewwwws. You get the picture.

Somehow, we ended up in the trunk of a Land Cruiser alongside eight other people and made it to the party. Never before, have I seen so much alcohol in my life. I felt like Dracula at a sex abstinence rally. I didn't know what we were celebrating exactly but for some reason there were quite a number of white people. Freddie introduced me to her sister – who surprised me by being totally normal. Then we had pizza, then I broke a bottle – the two events may or may not be related.

Freddie’s babe joined us at around midnight. I realized I’d met her before. Not from her looks but from the way she laughs. She has this infectious laugh that is impossible to forget. The kind of laugh that makes you feel like telling everything funny. The highlight of the night was when they kissed.

It was like one of those life’s little moments that you live for – seeing two girls kissing.

We went to some club at around 2am. Everyone knew Freddie. It was rather corporate. Most of the revelers were drinking and conversing animatedly. The dance floor was mostly deserted. We got our drinks, I saw a familiar face – some guy from Lumumba Hall. I nodded curtly – because bad boys don’t wave, they point an index finger and nod. Freddie poked me and whispered in my ear;

“By the way, you are currently in a kuchu bar.”