Here’s your 10k Ssebbo!

Published in the Daily Monitor: http://www.monitor.co.ug

Over the years, due to reasonably good experience, I have become paranoid about being alone at night for even minutes at a time anywhere. So when I was at a friend’s house party one evening, I announced at 9.00 pm that I was off.

“What?”, my friend exclaimed. “But it’s so early!”

“I don’t care”, I said. “Not only am I leaving, you are escorting me safely to a special hire”.

“Oh, come on!”, he said. “I’m drunk. I don’t wanna walk that far to the main road. Let me call you a boda guy I trust”.

“You can trust your boda guy all you like”, I responded. “I don’t trust the thieves waiting for him in my dark neighborhood!”

Like a good chap, he escorted me to the main road and we found a special hire. I was about to open the front door when the driver said.

“No, no madam! Let me open it for you”.

“Oh, how gallant”, I thought as he run around to my side and opened the passenger door.

“Thanks for being so helpful”, I told my friend. “I’ll be safe now”.

It was a few minutes after we begun driving that I begun to have an uneasy feeling. Something was off. I realized all the windows were completely tinted. I was encased in a black tomb. I tried to lower the window and it wouldn’t go down.

“Ssebbo”, I said. “I want to lower this window. Why can’t it go down?”

“Oh, sorry, it doesn’t work”.

Then he started to turn onto a road that I knew wasn’t the way to my home.

“Ssebbo!”, I said sharply. “This is a wrong way”.

“I know a short cut”.

Famous last words in my book

“No”, I insisted. “Please stay on the main road”.

“Okay”, he said. “But let me first get fuel”.

At the petrol station, the bad feeling in my stomach got worse and worse. I decided I wasn’t taking any chances. I tried to open the door and it wouldn’t open. That was it.

“HELP!” I begun to scream, banging at the window furiously. The fuel attendant opened the door.

“What’s the matter?”, he asked.

“Nothing now!”, I gasped. I turned to the annoyed looking driver and gave him a note.

“Here’s your 10k Ssebbo. Good night!”