The Poison Hunters in Accra

They flip the top of each soda they buy, hankering hungrily, but not after the fizz and flavour. They fish for harlequin hints of paddling particles, damning drops of detergent or some alien allergy in the bottle. First, they’ll blackmail and menace the manufacturer. If that ship sinks, they curse and sue for devious damages. They can rent false injury at twenty Cedis per devil-dealing doctor.

Elementary Eye Care

My friend’s eyes were always crimson-sore – they looked like a dying fire. So, the obligatory oculist opportunistically ordered optical lenses. The ersatz eyes arrived, but the raw discomfort mulishly remained. Rather than return to the pricy eye doctor and risk racking retinal surgery, we ’wimped’ back to the ABCs. We discovered that if my friend laved his still-sleepy phiz at first light, then he didn’t drive his hands to his eyes. The soreness soothed, the burning breezed away, and into the bin flew the gainless glasses.

Groundhog Day

If your every day
Looks like the one before
Then too cautious you play
Your life must be a bore

What’s the Luxury in a Car?

Some time ago, I pilloried a retailer for audacious advertising on a bumptious billboard. Now, they’re running an electronic encore. Streaming a sales promo on TV, they swear their heart is set on giving away two luxury cars. Now, the two cars are those minuscule, atomic Asian cars that you could even send by text message. So, what’s a luxury car?

Musical Chairs

In no telegraph time, I come to link my cell phone ring tone with the ten or so Undesirables that I would rather not hear from. Every one of those cringe-calls really rattles me. So, I shuffle my ring tone every month or two or three, according to when my Don’t-Pick list touches ten.

Predator and Prey

What did you permit
To bother you today?
Would you also admit
Being both Predator and Prey?

‘Exotic’ Videos in the City of Accra

Ghanaian artistes cut their music videos with animated windmills, the Alps, Manhattan or flying Arabian carpets in the busy background. They’re casually crooning about common affection or double-entendre coupling. So, the welkin wonder is the ’rhymeless’ spectacle.