Terror of a double-clicking woman....
Sep 06, 2011
There are two ways to get results from a computer: You can click once and let it open at its pace, or double-click and try to make it work at your pace. I learnt that when I earned my bread from making computers do things and do them as fast as they could be made to. Well, it emerges some other people learnt this lesson, and they’ve been at it, double-clicking.
There are two ways to get results from a computer: You can click once and let it open at its pace, or double-click and try to make it work at your pace. I learnt that when I earned my bread from making computers do things and do them as fast as they could be made to. Well, it emerges some other people learnt this lesson, and they’ve been at it, double-clicking.
Let’s put it in human terms. While a woman can ask you, please get us ghee; she sometimes pretends that she married (or is dating) a dummy, so she has to double-click. Please be careful not to buy bad ghee; you know the one mixed with mashed bananas. And oh, do move around a bit, compare prices and buy at the most competitive price.
Did that take you about half a minute to read? Lucky you, for when you’re taking those instructions from a double-clicking woman, it seems like she’s been talking at you for 40 days and 40 nights, atop Calvary Hill. The double-clicker will also, instead of saying, it’s been long since we went out, add: See, you guys don’t know the value of taking a girl out. Do you want me to plan it? My sister’s friend’s sister told her… and you ask, who told who?
The sister, she told her sister… (deep sigh) that Garuga is good. See, it’s not just about… By that time, you feel like someone is using red-hot tongs to pull the ends of your most sensitive nerves. The thing about the double-clicker is not that they are offering extra info, but that they are giving uncalled for info. Ideally, that is information you give someone who’s new in the city, or who’s hearing about ghee for the first time, or whom you know took four years attempting to pass their UCE, before they passed with aggregate 18 in their best two subjects. But a normal, sane guy?
I will never forget the scene I witnessed as the taxi I was travelling in waited at the lights in Kampala. There was this couple communicating in silence, until a hawker chanced upon their car. You know hawkers and their knack for showing up either at the wrong time, or to the wrong couple. The hawker was selling socks, undies and such stuff that is worn under other garments. Immediately, the helpful woman started – loud enough for us in the taxi to hear – telling him on what to do: You need to buy a pair of socks. But no, a pair is not enough; since you wear one pair once, and have it washed (giving him all the basics). Let’s also… ssebo, how much are the underpants? Let me see the material… No, don’t take that one (the man had picked a pack of undies). Let me feel it first…
Pity you might not have studied Literature at O-level, so chances are you didn’t meet Amope, Chume’s wife in Wole Soyinka’s The Trials of Brother Jero. That day I thought to myself, ‘…and I thought this character was fictional!’
The double-clicker does not only stop at directing you on how to drive. You know them, saying, you have not buckled in (even as you pull the seat belt); then before you join the main road, ‘eh-eh, first stop and indicate…’ (meanwhile, the indicator is already blinking); and later still, you park there… no, not there. Let’s go there…’ all this, in a wide expanse of parking space all open to you.
Let’s put it in human terms. While a woman can ask you, please get us ghee; she sometimes pretends that she married (or is dating) a dummy, so she has to double-click. Please be careful not to buy bad ghee; you know the one mixed with mashed bananas. And oh, do move around a bit, compare prices and buy at the most competitive price.
Did that take you about half a minute to read? Lucky you, for when you’re taking those instructions from a double-clicking woman, it seems like she’s been talking at you for 40 days and 40 nights, atop Calvary Hill. The double-clicker will also, instead of saying, it’s been long since we went out, add: See, you guys don’t know the value of taking a girl out. Do you want me to plan it? My sister’s friend’s sister told her… and you ask, who told who?
The sister, she told her sister… (deep sigh) that Garuga is good. See, it’s not just about… By that time, you feel like someone is using red-hot tongs to pull the ends of your most sensitive nerves. The thing about the double-clicker is not that they are offering extra info, but that they are giving uncalled for info. Ideally, that is information you give someone who’s new in the city, or who’s hearing about ghee for the first time, or whom you know took four years attempting to pass their UCE, before they passed with aggregate 18 in their best two subjects. But a normal, sane guy?
I will never forget the scene I witnessed as the taxi I was travelling in waited at the lights in Kampala. There was this couple communicating in silence, until a hawker chanced upon their car. You know hawkers and their knack for showing up either at the wrong time, or to the wrong couple. The hawker was selling socks, undies and such stuff that is worn under other garments. Immediately, the helpful woman started – loud enough for us in the taxi to hear – telling him on what to do: You need to buy a pair of socks. But no, a pair is not enough; since you wear one pair once, and have it washed (giving him all the basics). Let’s also… ssebo, how much are the underpants? Let me see the material… No, don’t take that one (the man had picked a pack of undies). Let me feel it first…
Pity you might not have studied Literature at O-level, so chances are you didn’t meet Amope, Chume’s wife in Wole Soyinka’s The Trials of Brother Jero. That day I thought to myself, ‘…and I thought this character was fictional!’
The double-clicker does not only stop at directing you on how to drive. You know them, saying, you have not buckled in (even as you pull the seat belt); then before you join the main road, ‘eh-eh, first stop and indicate…’ (meanwhile, the indicator is already blinking); and later still, you park there… no, not there. Let’s go there…’ all this, in a wide expanse of parking space all open to you.