Descriptions

Have you ever heard a friend trying to describe you to someone else, someone who doesn’t know you? No? Then you are very lucky indeed, do your best to keep it that way. I don’t know how your friendship would survive hearing your friend say (on the phone) “You’ll find her, she’s waiting for you outside Pioneer Mall, no, she’s not tall… yes, the short plump one, with glasses. Yes, short and fat. No, not light, a bit darker but not so dark. Just look for someone with big hips, yes, yes…”
To hear most people talk, you’d assume there are only three categories of people: tall, short, slim, fat, dark and light. If you don’t fall anywhere within these parameters then you are undescribable, like trying to describe the scent of frying gonja to someone whose sense of smell is totally and completely dead.
The other day I was strolling to the canteen to have lunch with two friends of mine. Along the way, one of them started regaling us with the hilarious story of a certain manual worker who, after a healthy dose of bhangi, would be seen flying across the vast lawns, attacking the grass with a lawnmower with the sort of vigour that no sober person would be able to sustain. As we heaved with laughter, I sought to clarify just which of the workers he was referring to, as there were two of them. My other friend looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, “You must know him, the dark one with a head shaped like a diamond.” I tried, and failed, to visualise a person with a diamond-shaped head. But my colleague was not done yet. “Yes, it must be him because it can’t be the other one- the short one with a head like an axe.” I must confess, I laughed until I sweated, but not before I had admonished my friend for referring to people in such a crude manner.
As we strolled out, thoroughly tickled, this same colleague launched into a fresh tale, “Remember Mukasa, the one with a stomach like a simsim granary… .”
Oh dear!